
Glass. 
Book, 



:r 5' U-S 



PROCEEDINGS 



Senate and House of Representatives 



UPON THE 



RECEPTION AND ACCEPTANCE FROM THE 
STATE OF MARYLAND 



Statues of Charles Carroll of Carrollton 
and of John Hanson, 



ERECTED IN STATUARY HALL OF THE CAPITOL. 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
1903. 



.(D. s lLs~ 



I 



IUN J 1906 

o.ota 






TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Proceedings in the Senate 5 

Address of Mr. McComas, of Maryland 8 

Address of Mr. Hoar, of Massachusetts 24 

Address of Mr. Dolliver, of Iowa . . . .< 30 

Address of Mr. Depew, of New York 46 

Address of Mr. Bacon, of Georgia 55 

Address of Mr. Wellington, of Maryland 58 

Proceedings in the House 75 

Address of Mr. Pearre, of Maryland 78 

Address of Mr. Dalzell, of Pennsylvania 96 

Address of Mr. Schirni, of Maryland 105 

3 



ACCEPTANCE OF STATUES OF CHARLES 
CARROLL AND JOHN HANSON. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE. 



DECEMBER 20, 1902. 

Mr. McComas. I offer a resolution, and ask that the letter 
which I send to the desk, addressed to the Senate and House 
of Representatives by the governor of Maryland, may be read 
before the resolution is read. 

The President pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland 
asks that the letter of the governor of Maryland referred to by 
him may be read. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, 
and the letter will be read. 

The Secretary read as follows: 

Executive Department, 
Annapolis, Md., December 15, 190?.. 
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, 

Washington, D. C. 

Gentlemen: I have the honor to inform yon that, in acceptance of the 
invitation contained in section 1S14 of the Revised Statutes of the United 
States, the general assembly of Maryland, by chapter 311 of the acts of 
1S98, made an appropriation to procure statues of Charxes Carroee of 
Carroleton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and 
John Hanson, President of the Continental Congress of 1781 and 1782, 
to be placed in Statuary Hall, in the Capitol, at Washington, D. C. 

By authority of the act of the general assembly of Maryland, the gov- 
ernor appointed John Lee Carroll, Douglas H. Thomas, Thomas J. Shryock, 
Fabian Franklin, and Richard K. Cross to constitute a commission to 
procure and have the statues erected. 

5 



6 Acceptance of Statues of 

I am informed by the commissioners that the statues were made by Mr. 
Richard E. Brooks, of Boston; that they are completed and have been 
placed in position, and are now ready to be presented to Congress. 

As governor of the State of Maryland, therefore, I have the honor to 
present to the Government of the United States the statues of the dis- 
tinguished statesmen named. 

Very respectfully, John Walter Smith, 

Governor of Maryland. 

The President pro tempore. The resolution submitted by 
the Senator from Maryland will now be read. 
The Secretary read the resolution, as follows: 

Resolved, That the exercises appropriate to the reception and accept- 
ance from the State of Maryland of the statues of Chari.ES Carrou OE 
Carroixton and of John Hanson, erected in Statuary Hall in the Cap- 
itol, be made the special order for Saturday, January 31, 1903, after the 
conclusion of the morning business. 

Mr. McComas. I ask unanimous consent for the present 
consideration of the resolution. 

There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to the con- 
sideration of the resolution. 

Mr. Allison. I suggest to the Senator from Maryland that 
he modify the resolution so as to make the time 2 o'clock. 

Mr. McComas. I will accept the suggestion of the Senator 
from Iowa to make the time 2 o'clock p. m. on Saturday, 
January 31, 1903. 

The President pro tempore. The resolution will be so 
modified. The question is on the adoption of the resolution 
as modified. 

The resolution as modified was agreed to. 

JANUARY 31, 1903- 

ACCEPTANCE OF STATUES OF CHARLES CARROLL AND JOHN 
HANSON. 

Mr. McComas. Mr. President, I present the following con- 
current resolution. 

The Presiding Officer. The concurrent resolution will be 
read. 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 7 

The Secretary read the concurrent resolution, as follows: 

Resolved by the Senate {the House of Representatives concurring), That 
the thanks of Congress be presented to the State of Maryland for provid- 
ing the bronze statues of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and John 
Hanson, citizens of Maryland, illustrious for their historic renown and 
distinguished civic services. 

Resolved, That the statues be accepted and placed in the National 
Statuary Hall in the Capitol, and that a copy of these resolutions duly 
authenticated be transmitted to the governor of the State of Maryland. 

Mr. McComas. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
the gentlemen who constitute the Maryland statuary commis- 
sion for the presentation of the statutes of Charles Carroll 
of Carrollton and John Hanson be admitted to the floor, 
and I ask that the descendants of the distinguished men who are 
thus honored and the ladies and others of their party may have 
the privilege of occupying during these exercises the gallery 
reserved for the families of Senators. 

The Presiding Officer. The Senator from Maryland asks 
unanimous consent that the commission of the State of Mary- 
land who have under charge the statues be admitted to the 
floor of the Senate, and that the ladies and gentlemen accom- 
panying them be admitted to the reserved gallery of the Senate. 
Is there objection to the request of the Senator from Maryland? 
The Chair hears none, and the request is granted. 



Acceptance of Statues of 



ADDRESS OF MR.. MCCOMAS, OF MARYLAND, 

Mr. President: The State of Maryland has placed in the 
National Statuary Hall the bronze statues of Charles 
Carroll of Carrollton and John Hanson, and the purpose of 
the resolutions that I have just offered is that now they be pre- 
sented to Congress for acceptance. The State statuary com- 
mission, who appreciate the courtesy of the Senate on this 
occasion, have well performed their office, for the works of the 
artist are worthy of their subjects and of a place in yonder hall. 

Maryland has nearly three centuries of history wherefrom to 
choose two citizens illustrious in her annals and worthy of this 
national commemoration. My State did not accord this high 
honor to the founder, George Calvert, nor to Caecilius Calvert, 
the second Lord Baltimore, the father of the province; nor to 
the gallant leaders of the Maryland Line, to Howard, Small- 
wood, Williams, or De Kalb, commanders of that body of sol- 
diers which early won the confidence of Washington, which, at 
Brooklyn Heights, by its discipline and bravery, saved our 
army when surrounded, which maintained this honorable dis- 
tinction for steadiness and gallantry until in the last pitched 
battle of the Revolution, at Eutaw Springs, that same Mary- 
land Line drove the flower of the English infantry at the point 
of the bayonet; nor to her orators or- jurists or lawyers who, 
living before Luther Martin and William Pinkney or in their 
day or after them, emulated their fame and glory. 

From among all her renowned sons Maryland chose Charles 
Carroll of Carrollton and John Hanson as most worthy of 
this national commemoration. 

And with reason has my State presented the statues of these 
illustrious men to join the company of the great and good 
already gathered together in the old Hall of Representatives. 
The story of the Revolution grows in dramatic interest as the 
long perspective grows. As the Revolution recedes, each 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 9 

succeeding generation finds augmented fascination in the great 
story, and draws increasing patriotism from this inspiring 
panorama of our history and this immense event in the history 
of the English-speaking people. 

The most stupid King England ever had was then on the 
throne. He never long endured a prime minister if his talent 
rose above that of a gentleman usher. 

The American colonists were the least governed and the 
freest of English subjects. They were prosperous. They 
loved the Kingdom and the King. They loved the English 
name and tradition, the literature, the architecture and arts of 
England, its historic places, its very soil, for England was to 
them the old home. They were freemen and mostly free- 
holders, 'and they loved liberty. The history of English liberty 
was the history of a struggle for the rights of the individual 
citizen as respects person, property, and opinion, so that he 
shall have nothing to fear from the tyranny of an executive or 
of a Parliament; a struggle which began with Magna 
Charta and lasted down to the Bill of Rights and to the 
Declaration of Independence. 

The indissoluble connection between taxation and represen- 
tation was the basis of the English conception of freedom. 
That no man should be taxed without his own consent was the 
principle which was the root of the American Revolution. 

The glorious wars of the elder Pitt had raised from the dust 
the standard of Great Britain, had restored her prestige and 
power, but had also enormously increased her debt. The 
colonists, under the guidance of the elder Pitt, had cheerfully 
given men and money. They had followed Braddock to 
defeat, and Howe and Amherst and Wolfe to victory. As 
compatriots of English veterans they had helped drive the 
French from the Great Lakes and from the valley of the 
Ohio, joined in the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, 
the siege of Quebec, and the conquest of Canada. 

The elder Pitt' would not have appealed in vain to the 
Colonies, who loved him, to tax themselves to help pay their 



io Acceptance of Statues of 

share of debt for these wars. But the great minister had 
given place to a pliant tool of a dull king. 

As the burden had been partly incurred in the defense of the 
Colonies, George Granville resolved that the Colonies should 
bear their share of it. They had no representation in Parlia- 
ment and therefore the Colonies replied that taxation and 
representation went hand in hand. Blunder followed blunder 
until loyalty to King and Parliament died out in the Colonies. 

The province of Maryland had little cause for a change of 
government. The proprietary government was mild, and 
reposed on popular affection. The colonists were a homoge- 
neous people, prosperous and contented, although the bigotry 
of the age had imposed disabilities on Catholics in the only 
province whose Catholic founders had dedicated it to civil and 
religious liberty and to the broadest toleration. 

The Colonial governor, Robert Eden, was beloved and 
respected. The colony was rapidly growing. Maryland was 
the fourth colony in population and importance when she 
joined in the Revolution from love of liberty, and from hon- 
orable sympathy with the general welfare of her sister colonies. 
On this broad and generous ground she gave her adhesion to 
the Revolution, and authorized her delegates in the Continental 
Congress to concur in the Declaration of Independence. 

It is because of their part in the great drama of the Revo- 
lution, their unfailing devotion to the cause of liberty, their 
great power and influence at critical -periods of the struggle 
with Great Britain, their characters and lives * that Mary- 
land has selected John Hanson and Charles Carroix of 
Carrolltou, to dwell in enduring bronze in yonder American 
pantheon. 

Most of the thirteen original States have contributed statues 
to our National Gallery. It is unfortunate that so few of the 
illustrious men of the Revolution have been sent to join the 
solemn circle there. It is to be regretted that hitherto only 
three of the signers of the great Declaration face each other 
there. 



Charles Carroll and Jolm Hanson. n 

American public life in that time of trial and danger was 
adorned by many striking figures. Washington, Franklin, 
Hamilton, Jefferson, and Marshall of that generation belong 
to the history of the world. Many of their associates will 
forever live in American history. They stand in the fore- 
front of the nation's life. Therefore I rejoice that Maryland 
now brings to the old Hall of Representatives for the accept- 
ance of Congress two men of the Revolution, one of them the 
President of a Congress of the Revolution, the other the last 
of the survivors of the signers of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, that great act with which our nation's history 
begins. 

JOHN HANSON. 

John Hanson was born in 17 15 in Charles County, Md., 
and lived there until in 1773 he removed to Frederick County, 
then rapidly growing. He had nine times represented Charles 
County in the provincial assembly. In trying times John 
Hanson was by nature a leader. The ' ' Boston port bill ' ' 
roused the peaceful province to make common cause with 
Massachusetts. We find Hanson a delegate from Frederick 
to a congress at Annapolis, aUd as chairman of the committee 
of observation of his county sending money to John Adams 
for the poor of Boston, later helping to raise two companies 
of riflemen in Frederick. Walking all the way, in twenty-two 
days Capt. Michael Cresap and Capt. Thomas Price marched 
their Frederick riflemen into Cambridge. The Frederick com- 
panies were the first Southern troops to join Washington. 

At Annapolis in 1775 Hanson fearlessly joined in the over- 
throw of the proprietary government and in placing supreme 
control in the provincial convention. The cautious conven- 
tion, hoping for reunion with Britain, had precluded our dele- 
gates in Congress from declaring for independence of the 
colonies. Hanson and the Frederick County patriots now 
assembled and resolved ' ' That what may be recommended by 
a majority of the Congress equally delegated by the people 
of the United Colonies we will at the hazard of our lives 



12 Acceptance of Statues of 

and fortunes support and maintain, and that every resolution 
of the convention tending to separate this province from a 
majority of the colonies without the consent of the people 
is destructive to our internal safety." Samuel Chase and 
Charles Carroll had just returned from their mission to 
Canada, and had taken their seats in the new convention. 
Carroll was mainly instrumental in causing the convention 
to recall its former instructions and empowering the Maryland 
delegates in Congress to concur ' ' in declaring the United 
Colonies free and independent States." 

John Hanson, with unflagging spirit, in the legislature and 
in the Continental Congress supported the great struggle for 
independence. 

During his three successive terms in the Continental Con- 
gress John Hanson was engaged in battling for another great 
cause, whose successful issue changed the whole course of our 
national life. It is recorded in the journals of Congress that 
"on March i, 1781, John Hanson and Daniel Carroll did ~r- 
sign and ratify the Articles of Confederation of the United 
States. ' ' 

This action was the crowning historic service in Hanson's 
career. 

The far-reaching consequences of the struggle which ended 
when Hanson signed the Articles of Confederation are now 
better understood. We all recall that in November, 1777, 
Congress submitted the Articles of Confederation to the State 
legislatures for ratification. Within fifteen months they were 
ratified by all the States except Maryland. Our State refused 
ratification until those States claiming the northwestern back 
lands, and especially Virginia, should surrender their claims 
of western territory to the confederation. This action of Mary- 
land led directly to the formation of the Federal Union. In 
October, 1777, when the Articles of Confederation were about 
to be presented by Congress to the States for ratification, 
Maryland alone ,voted that Congress shall have the sole right 



Charles Carroll and -John Hanson. 13 

and power to determine the western boundary of such States 
as claim to the Mississippi and lay out the land beyond this 
boundary into separate and independent States from time to 
time, as the number and circumstances of the people may 
require. This would compel Virginia, New York, Connecticut, 
and Massachusetts to surrender their claims to the vast inte- 
rior and thus create a domain to be owned by the Confeder- 
acy until new States grew up and should be admitted into it. 
Maryland alone voted for this bold centralization. The States 
protested against the attitude of Maryland. Here and there 
leading men were heard to threaten to divide the little State 
on the Chesapeake among her neighbors and then declare the 
confederation complete. 

All other States had ratified the Articles when, in May, 
1779, Maryland again communicated to the Congress her 
unalterable resolve not to concur until she received definite 
assurances that the Northwest Territory should become the 
common property of the United States, "subject to be par- 
celed out by Congress into free, convenient, and independent 
governments." New York first yielded. Daniel Carroll and 
John Hanson, from Maryland, persistently pressed this 
demand of their State, and in September, 1780, Congress, 
yielding, recommended all States claiming Western lands 
to cede them to the Confederation. A month later Congress 
advanced further, and adopted the Maryland plan, declaring 
that from the ceded lands in due season sovereign States, like 
the thirteen, should be admitted into the Union. 

Virginia and Connecticut yielded their claims and long after 
Massachusetts abandoned her shadow}* claims to the Western 
lands. The area of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, 
and Ohio thus became the common property of the Confedera- 
tion. And so Hanson and' Daniel Carroll, after this triumph 
had been secured largely by their efforts, signed the Articles 
of Confederation. It was Maryland that during the period of 
Hason's service led the way to acquire a national domain, and 



14 Acceptance of Statues of 

thus laid broad and deep the foundation of our Federal Union. 
For his share in this pregnant service John Hanson's name 
will be associated forever with laying the corner stone of ■ our 
great nation. Out of this first ordinance grew the Ordinance 
of 1784, and later the great Ordinance of 1787, and later the 
Constitution and the United States of America. For this act 
alone John Hanson is worthy of his place in the goodly com- 
pany gathered in the old Hall of Representatives. The con- 
federation of the States was now complete, and on November 
5, 1 78 1, John Hanson was elected the first president of the 
Congress of the Confederation. 

This elevation to the Presidency was a signal compliment 
and a great honor to Maryland. It has a much larger mean- 
ing as we look back now over the stately procession of the 
great Commonwealths successively entering the Union. The 
persistent refusal of Maryland to consent to the Confederation 
until she won from her reluctant associated States consent that 
the western territory should be dedicated to the Union, made 
smooth the pathway for Vermont, Kentucky, and Maine to 
enter the Union as independent States, carved out of the mag- 
nificent domain Maryland directly secured to the Union, the 
great Commonwealths of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, 
and Wisconsin, and determined for all coming time that the 
after acquired territory of the United States should in due 
time by Congress be fashioned and admitted as States, aug- 
menting the power of the Republic and the grandeur of the 
American Union. 

By this election to the Presidency of Congress John Hanson 
became in a political sense the foremost person in the United 
States, and represented its dignity. His title was "President 
of the United States in Congress assembled." After the 
decisive victory at Yorktown President Hanson had the 
felicity to welcome General Washington and present him to 
Congress, then sitting in Philadelphia. 

On November 4, 1782, President Hanson's term expired. 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 15 

The war was ended, the last British soldier was soon to sail 
away from New York. Peace was in sight. At 68 years of 
age Hanson was worn out in the public service. His 
health was broken. He refused to accept further public 
service. He died November 22, 1783, in the State he loved, 
and his State, one hundred and twenty j^ears after his death, 
bestows upon his name the highest honor whereby an American 
State can commemorate an illustrious citizen. 

CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON. 

Charles Carroll of Carrollton was born at Annapolis, 
September 19, 1737. His grandfather, Charles Carroll, the 
attorney-general of the province, came over to Maryland in 
1688. His father, Charles Carroll, was one of the richest men 
of his day and country. It was the custom of wealthy colo- 
nists to send their sons over the sea for education and travel. 
So young Carroll, sent as a boy of eleven years to the Jesuit 
College at St. Omers, and later to colleges at Rheims and Paris, 
was a student at the Temple in London at twenty. Eight 
years of London life to an accomplished young colonist, who at 
the ' ' Crown and Anchor ' ' more than once met Dr. Johnson and 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, now and then dined with Burke, heard 
Charles Fox expatiate upon liberty, or time and again listened 
to the eloquence and saw r Parliament bow before the greatness 
of the elder Pitt, inspired young Carroll with the ideals of the 
noblest Englishmen. He came home to Annapolis at twenty- 
eight years of age. The news of the stamp act of 1765 soon 
stirred with unwonted anger against their King the pleasure- 
loving colonists of the little capital and of the province. 

Young Carroll had been strongly moved by the words of 
Pitt, the first English orator whose words were a power over 
Parliament, over the nation, and over the colonies. Though 
passionate, Pitt's eloquence was the eloquence of a statesman. 
Perchance the law student at the Temple had sat in the gallery 
and heard Pitt's trumpet tongue declare "Taxation is no part 



1 6 Acceptance of Statues of 

of the governing or legislative power. The taxes are a volun- 
tary gift and grant of the Commons alone. In legislation the 
three estates of the realm are alike concerned; but the concur- 
rence of the peers and Crown is only necessary to clothe it with 
the form of law. The gift and grant is of the Commons 
alone." 

When the wave of good feeling after the repeal of the stamp 
act had been rudely checked by Charles Townshend's three- 
pence tax on tea, young Carroll must have rejoiced that Pitt 
had said: " In my opinion this Kingdom has no right to lay a 
tax on the colonies. America is almost in open rebellion. I 
rejoice that America has resisted." 

Already one of the wealthiest of the colonists, Carroll's 
religion debarred him froin holding office. The Sons of Liberty 
were organized. Carroll joined them. He wore homespun. 
He counseled resistance to tyranny, and in a discussion with 
Daniel Dulaney, the ablest lawyer in the colony, Carroll, in 
a series of letters signed " First Citizen," won a signal victory 
over his brilliant adversary and a high place in public confi- 
dence, ranking as a popular leader alongside Chase, Paca, and 
Stone. 

Annapolis, at the mouth of the beautiful Severn, under sunny 
skies in a mild climate, had grown to be one of the centers of 
social life and refinement on the continent. Ships from all 
lands came to its harbor and brought to the young city the 
chief trade of the Province. Theaters, race courses, balls, and 
social assemblies spread the fame of the enjoyable life at the 
Maryland capital. The wealthy planters wintered there in 
capacious mansions. The officials of the province, with the 
popular Governor Eden at their head, extended their hospitality 
to make life joyous. 

The provincial assembly, the assize, and higher courts added 
features to the life. From other colonies visitors came and lin- 
gered, and among them now and then was Col. George Wash- 
ington. Daniel Dulaney, unrivaled lawyer and scholar, lived 
here. William Pinkney, the foremost orator and lawver of his 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson, 17 

time and country, was here growing to manhood. Charles 
Wilson Peale, born here, had returned from England to this 
wealthy capital of a fruitful land to paint the portraits of 
Maryland's gentry and the worthies of the Revolution. The 
wide circles, the narrow streets, with enduring brick mansions 
of the time of the Georges, still leave Annapolis the most 
quaint and interesting capital in our country, as it is among 
the most beautiful. May these historic landmarks survive 
the perils of its present rapid growth. 

On October 19, 1774, when the people of the neighboring 
counties thronged in Annapolis and denounced ' ' the Boston 
port bill," the brig Peggy Stewart, from London, came into 
port with 2,000 pounds of tea. In June the provincial assem- 
bly had forbidden all importations of "that detestable weed, 
tea." The irritated populace threatened violence to Anthony 
Stewart, the owner; Williams, the consignee, and the ship 
itself. Stewart and Williams confessed to the people's com- 
mittee " that the> T had been guilty of a daring insult, an act of 
the most pernicious tendency, to the leaders of America," and 
offered to burn the tea. When they sought aid from 
Charles Carroll of Carrollton he promptly advised that 
Stewart must set fire to both ship and tea. So Stewart 
reluctantly went on board and set fire to his ship, and with 
her sails set and colors flying, in the presence of the patriotic 
multitude, the Peggy Stewart burned to the water's edge. 
In Maryland the 19th of October is a holiday to commemorate 
the day when pacific Maryland placed herself in line with stub- 
born Boston and Massachusetts Bay. In December news of 
the burning of the Peggy Stewart reached London, to the great 
alarm of the merchants of Threadneedle street, and the House 
of Commons began to take America more seriously. 

In January, 1775, Carroll became a member of the first 
committee of observation at Annapolis, and was elected a 
delegate to represent Anne Arundel County in the provin- 
cial convention, which soon named him upon the committee 
of safety. 

S. Doc. 13 2 



iS Acceptance of Statues of 

The provincial convention, to Carroll's disgust, disavowed 
any design of colonial independence. Unhappily for the 
province, Carroll's character, influence, and patriotic labors 
had attracted attention in Congress. Early in 1776 Congress 
appointed Benjamin Franklin. Samuel Chase, and Charles 
Carroll as commissioners to Canada to secure her cooperation 
with the United Provinces against Great Britain. This plan, 
once hopeful, had become hopeless by the defeat and death of 
Montgomery, by the levying of contributions to feed our starv- 
ing army, by the manifest incapacity of our commanders, and 
the inferiority of our forces. The Canadians were friendly, 
then suspicious, then irritated, then hostile. The population, 
nearly all Catholic, were turned against us by their priests. 
Charles Carroll and Rev. John Carroll in vain tried to 
secure the aid of their coreligionists. Carroll's journal, in 
his excellent English, vividly tells this story of their inevitable 
failure. Canada was destined to remain a British dominion 
until a day in the distant future. 

In Carroll's absence, on May S, 1776, the Maryland Con- 
vention had again instructed the Man-land delegates in Con- 
gress not to agree to a final separation from Great Britain. 
Soon afterwards Hanson and the patriots of Frederick had 
sounded a trumpet call for complete independence. 

Carroll now hastened to Annapolis and resumed his seat to 
urge the repeal of these instructions. Xo time was to be lost. 
This was a crisis in the Revolution. On June 28, 1776. the 
new instructions advocated by Carroll were given. On July 
2. 1776. our Mandand delegates found themselves authorized 
to vote for independence. 

The zeal and ability of Carroll in winning his State to take 
this action he had so early and so steadily urged, led to his 
immediate appointment as a Delegate from Maryland to the 
Continental Congress. On July 4. 1776, Charles Carroll 
of Carrollton was appointed, along with Matthew Tilghman, 
Thomas Johnson. William Paca, Samuel Chase, and Thomas 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 19 

Stone, Delegates to that famous Congress. Carroll hastened 
to Philadelphia in time to vote on July 19 to engross this 
great paper. On August 2, Chase, Paca, Stone, and Carroll 
affixed their signatures to the Declaration of Independence. 
Charles Carroll of Carrollton with alacrity risked his life 
and his great fortune by signing this charter of the new- 
Republic, ' ' this document unparalleled in the annals of man- 
kind." The board of war was Adams, Sherman, Harrison, 
Wilson, and Rutledge, and to those Carroll was soon added. 
Chairman John Adams tells us that on July 18 Carroll was 
so chosen, and that he was ' ' an excellent member, whose edu- 
cation, manners, and application to business and to study did 
honor to his fortune, the first in America." 

In August Carroll returned to a seat in the Maryland con- 
vention, which adopted the bill of rights and constitution 
which created Maryland a sovereign State. 

It was Carroll who suggested the mode of choosing the 
State senate of Maryland, which suggested, as Madison tells 
us, to the framers of the Federal Constitution the mode of 
choosing the Senators of this Senate, the method by which we 
now hold our seats here. 

After the fashion of that day, Carroll went to and 
from the State assembly and the Continental Congress. He 
belonged to both. 

To his lasting honor, Carroll unwaveringly supported on 
the board of war and in Congress the great commander, and 
helped defeat the Conway cabal, designed to put Gates in 
Washington's place. We find Carroll in 177S with the 
Maryland delegates urging the cession of the public lands to 
the Confederation, and steadily struggling to secure this sure 
foundation for the coming Federal Union, until he resigned 
from Congress at the close of 1778. 

The French treaty gave Carroll confidence in our ultimate 
success in the war, and he believed his sen-ices in the State 
senate of Maryland would be his most effective way to help the 



20 Acceptance of Statues of 

army in the field. There he advocated generous support of 
Washington, and voted troops and financial aid to the war. 
He steadily opposed confiscation of the property of British 
subjects, and also all the wild currency schemes to which our 
countrymen were then prone to turn for relief. He firmly 
urged the Maryland policy of dedication of the Western terri- 
tory to the Confederation. 

He was in the Maryland senate leading the fight to secure 
Maryland's ratification of the Constitution of 1789. Long 
before his fellows, Carroll had advocated independence, and 
in advance of his associates he advocated a Federal Union. 
He had declined election to the Congress of the Confederation 
because he foresaw its powerlessness. 

Washington and Gates, commissioners from Virginia, met 
Carroll, Stone, and Samuel Hughes, commissioners from 
Maryland, to arrange to open and extend the navigation of 
the Potomac. They met December 22, 1784, at Annapolis, 
and later at Mount Vernon. The Maryland report asked that 
Pennsylvania and Delaware should be included, because the 
scheme of navigation included a canal between Delaware River 
and the Chesapeake. The outcome was the Annapolis con- 
vention of 1786, which led to the Federal Convention which 
framed our Constitution. 

Thus the signer of the Declaration had a part in the begin- 
ning of the Constitution. 

Under the new Constitution, Carroll was elected to the 
First Congress as a Senator from Maryland. His colleague 
was John Henry. In April, 1789, he appeared in the Senate. 
Congress had assembled in the old city hall of New Vork. 
Carroll, the friend of Washington, Hamilton, and Franklin, 
was a determined Federalist. He drew a two years' term in 
the Senate. He reported the now famous judiciary act. He 
declared for a standing arm}'. He successfully labored to 
establish this Federal District, in whose Capitol his statue will 
hereafter stand. He reported the assumption bill which but- 
tressed the Federal Union. He was reelected to the Senate in 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 21 

1791, but resigned that he might remain in the Maryland sen- 
ate, a State statute now forbidding service in both bodies at 
the same time. In 1801 the party of Jefferson triumphed, and 
thereby, at sixty-three years of age, ended the public career 
of Charles Carroll the Federalist. During thirty years of 
public life he had left his impress upon the times. 

At his beautiful home, Doughoregan Manor, or at his town 
house in Baltimore, he spent the remaining thirty-three years 
of his long life, devoted to his large estate, to his home and 
kindred, to the Bible, to the classics, and to polite learning, 
always mindful of his religion and his country. On July 4, 
1822, Carroll helped lay the corner stone of the Baltimore 
and Ohio Railroad, which he helped promote. He who, with 
Washington, forty years before sought by the Potomac navi- 
gation scheme to unite the Ohio with the sea, still a farseeing 
Federalist statesman at eighty- five years of age foresaw that 
the American Union could not have endured until our day 
without the railroads. For political and social purposes rail- 
roads and steamships, telegraphs and telephones, have made 
our vast country as compact and intimate as was New England 
a century ago. 

At ninety years of age Carroll was erect and vigorous, 
with the vivacity and grace of youth. In person he was small 
and slight. His face was strong, his eye piercing, his manners 
easy and winning. About this time he heard the impressive 
tidings of the death of Adams and Jefferson on the 4th of 
July, 1826. To him came the address of Daniel Webster 
upon Adams and Jefferson and that stately apostrophe to the 
last of the signers: 
/ ' ' Of the illustrious signers of the Declaration of Independence 
there now remains only one, Charles Carroll. He seems 
an aged oak, standing alone on the plain, which time has spared 
a little longer after all of its contemporaries have been leveled 
with the dust. Venerable object! We delight to gather around 
its trunk while yet it stands, and to dwell beneath its shadow. 
Sole survivor of an assembly of as great men as the world has 



22 Acceptance of Statues of 

witnessed, in a transaction one of the most important that 
history records, what thoughts, what interesting reflections, 
must fill his elevated and devout soul! If he dwell on the past, 
how touching its recollections; if he survey the present, how 
happy, how joyous, how full of the fruition of that hope which 
his ardent patriotism indulged; if he glance at the future, how 
does the prospect of his country's advancement almost bewilder 
his weakened conception! Fortunate distinguished patriot! 
Interesting relic of the past! Let him know that while we 
honor the dead we do not forget the living; and that there is 
not a heart here which does not fervently pray that Heaven 
may keep him yet back from the society of his companions." 

That solemn prayer was granted. Charles Carroll of 
Carrolltou lived until his ninety-sixth year, and on Novem- 
ber 14, 1S32, died with the calmness of a philosopher and with 
the faith of a holy man of God. 

The work of Carroll and Hanson and their compatriots of 
the Revolution gave to the world the first true Federal State; 
and they built it to endure the storms and stress of civil war. 
They so cemented it that all fears of its disruption have dis- 
appeared forever. It is the great Republic of all history. In 
it the law is supreme. No man is so high as to be above the 
law. In the very fiber of the people is inbred a regard for law, 
which is the security of our rights and the basis of our pros- 
perous and happy civil government. Yet under it the people 
shape their own destiny and unhindered walk in their own 
paths. \ \ 

Looking back over the one hundred and twenty-seven years 
of our existence as a nation, one truth is luminous. The world 
would not if it could erase the great Republic from the map of 
the globe. 

The future of civilization rests with the Anglo-Saxon race. 
Not the British Empire but the American Republic will lead 
that race onward to that future. Traditional, moral, political, 
and intellectual ties unite in a sense all who speak the English 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 23 

language, to-day the leading language of the world. Mr. Bryce 
justly boasts that "England has sent her language, her com- 
merce, her laws, and institutions forth from herself over an 
even wider and more populous area than that whose races were 
molded into new forms by the laws and institutions of Rome." 

The marvelous achievements of the English-speaking people, 
reaching forth from their little island world, are sure to be 
surpassed by several hundred millions of English-speaking 
people of fifty powerful States in an invincible Republic whose 
home is the vast center of a continent washed by both oceans. 

Lord Rosebery, the foremost statesman and orator of the 
British Empire in our day, has outlined in historic vision what 
would have been the future of the English-speaking people had 
George III listened to reason and had the thirteen colonies sent 
representatives to the Imperial Parliament. He predicted that 
at last when the Americans became the majority, the seat of 
empire would have been moved across the Atlantic, and Britain 
would have become the historic shrine and European outpost 
of the world empire, with the* English-speaking Federal Parlia- 
ment sitting in Columbia territory somewhere in the Mississippi 
Basin. 

Simpler and grander far is the historic reality. The great 
Republic has been worthy of its heritage. It has lifted up 
humanity and liberty. It has advanced civilization. It leads 
the commerce of the world. It is the richest nation on the 
globe. It is now the world's center of finance. It is invincible 
in war, if war approach its shores. It is fast reaching out to 
control the seas. Its people are happy, free, homogeneous — 
the most intelligent, and soon to be the most numerous. It is 
the greatest self-governing nation and the greatest world power. 
Its foreign policy is a synonym for justice. Its creed is peace. 

The future of the English-speaking peoples depends upon our 
Republic, and that future, in the vigorous embrace of the 
younger world, is boundless. 



24 Acceptance of Statues of 



Address of Mr. Hoar, of Massachusetts. 

Mr. President: Every man who has visited a great gallery 
will remember some picture that caught his attention and 
dwells in his memory because of some single stroke or feature. 
It will seem of little importance when he comes to tell of it. 
But that is what caught his eye and led him to pause before 
it when a hundred more celebrated works of more famous 
painters were neglected or forgotten. It abides with him for 
the rest of his life. If it be a landscape, it may be some single 
rock or tree. If it be a Dutch interior, it may be only a ray 
of light through a window. If it be a portrait, it is but a 
glance of the eye, or a curl of the lip, or the pose of the head. 
But it penetrates the soul, and it abides. 

Most of our great popular reputations are made in that way. 
There are a few men like Washington, or like Marshall, or like 
Webster, or like Lincoln, whose service is so great that their 
countrymen know every detail of it by heart. But, in general, 
our great men are remembered not because of sober and 
faithful labor, not because of long service in legislation, or in 
the Executive chair, or even in war. Something has found 
its way to the people's heart and keeps the name fresh. 

Old John Adams, though he was President of the United 
States, is remembered by nine men out of ten for the immortal 
argument for the Declaration of Independence, ascribed to him 
by Webster; for the fact that he was our first representative to 
Great Britain, and for his sublime death at the height of 
human fame, with the undying words " Independence forever" 
on his dying lips. As was said of Lord Nelson, by his 
biographer, "If the chariot and the horses of fire had been 
vouchsafed for his translation he could scarcely have departed 
in a brighter blaze of glory." 

John Hancock was a great power in the time of the Revolu- 
tion, and before. But his countrymen in general only know 
that he signed his name to the Declaration in letters visible 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 25 

across the broad Atlantic, and that he told the patriots to burn 
Boston, though it contained his whole fortune, if it were need- 
ful for the cause of liberty; that he was President of the 
Continental Congress, and that he was excepted, with Sam 
Adams, in the royal proclamation of amnesty, as a rebel whose 
offenses were too flagitious for pardon. 

Ask even the men of his own State of Massachusetts, and of 
his own town of Boston, what they know of Sam Adams. They 
will tell you that they know that he was a man who was 
excepted with Hancock from the royal pardon; that he was 
the man who demanded of Hutchinson the removal of the regi- 
ments from Boston, and that when Hutchinson told him he 
would remove one, answered, "If you have power to remove 
one you have power to remove both," and that when he told 
the story afterwards he said, "It was then that I observed 
his knees tremble, and I enjoyed the sight." 

There is an admirable memoir of Charles Carroll, which 
shows a life extending over almost a century. A large part of 
it is crowded with honorable public service of the first quality. 
It shows him fully entitled to rank not only as a foremost 
statesman of a foremost State, but among the great men of 
his time, from whatever State they may have come. There 
has been no time since the Revolution ended when the name of 
Charles Carroll of Carrollton was not a familiar house- 
hold word in every home through the length and breadth of 
the country. 

Yet if you had asked, not merely common men, but well- 
informed men, students of history or graduates of the college 
or university, men themselves taking an important part in 
public affairs,' they could tell you only that Charles Carroll 
was a Catholic; that he lived to survive all his companions 
who signed the Declaration; and that when he signed his name 
he took care that there should be no doubt of his identity, if 
the Revolutionary war were a failure and it were in the power 
of the Royal Government to inflict the death penalty for 



treason. 



26 Acceptance of Statues of 

Charles Carroll died at 95, in the year 1832. He sur- 
vived Jefferson and John Adams over six years. Jefferson and 
John Adams and Carroll had been the only survivors of the 
signers of the Declaration for eleven years before. It seemed 
that as each of that immortal company died the affection his 
countrymen had felt for him was transferred to the survivors. 

I suppose, in spite of the bitter political antagonism of that 
day, in which Jefferson and Adams not only shared, but in 
which they were the great leaders of the opposite sides, that 
there were never figures in the history of any people dearer to 
the popular heart than Thomas Jefferson, as he comes down in 
history with the Declaration of Independence in one hand and 
the title deed of Louisiana in the other, and brave and honest 
old John Adams, who had argued, with a power given to no 
other man, the side of the country in the great debate of 
liberty. When Adams and Jefferson died it seemed that the 
whole of this sentiment gathered and centered upon Carroll. 

I can remember when he died, though then but a child of 
6 years. The schoolboy used" to be asked the question in the 
school to name the only man living of that illustrious band. 
And I well remember when the solemn tidings went through 
the country that Charles Carroll was gone. 

Before he died men used to make pilgrimages to his dwelling 
as to a shrine. My honored and accomplished friend Mr. 
Winthrop has left on record a graphic account of such a visit. 

I can not but remember that it was my privilege to see and know that 
venerable person in my early manhood. Entering his drawing-room 
nearly five and forty years ago, I found him reposing on a sofa arid cov- 
ered with a shawl, and was not even aware of his presence, so shrunk and 
shriveled by the lapse of years was his originally feeble frame. Quot 
libras in duce summo! But the little heap on the sofa was soon seen 
stirring, and, rousing himself from his midday nap, he rose and greeted 
me with a courtesy and grace which I shall never forget. 

In the ninety-fifth year of his age, as he was, and within a few months 
of his death, it is not surprising that there should be little for me to recall 
of that interview save his eager inquiries about James Madison, whom I 
had just visited at Montpelier, and his affectionate allusions to John 
Adams, who had gone before him; and save, too, the exceeding satisfac- 
tion for myself of having seen and pressed the hand of the last surviving 
signer of the Declaration. 



Charles Carroll and John Ha?iso?i, 27 

Webster described him as ' ' an aged oak standing alone on 
the plain, which time has spared a little longer after all its 
contemporaries have been leveled with the dust." > He says 
that his countrymen delight to gather around its trunk while 
it yet stands, and to dwell beneath its shadow. 

I will not undertake to do what my honorable friend from 
Maryland has done so much better— draw the lesson of patriot- 
ism which is taught us by the life of Charles Carroll. 
I have no fear that the great Declaration will ever lose its 
primacy among the political State papers which have been 
produced since the beginning of time. To find its superior or 
its equal we must search the inspired pages of our venerable 
Scriptures. There have been times, and there will be again, 
when the great truths on which our fathers planted the 
Republic, as upon a corner stone, will be denied or scorned 
or scoffed at by men or parties who, in some fancied stress or 
political necessity, will endeavor to escape their obligations. 

That is true, unhappily, of the Ten Commandments and of 
the Sermon on the Mount. It is true of every moral and legal 
obligation, whether of divine or human sanction. The gen- 
eration and the party and the individual who have disobeved 
these high commands perish and are forgotten, while the 
eternal law of rectitude abides forever. The commanding 
authority of our great Declaration and the pure fame of the 
men who framed it and who signed it and who pledged to it 
their life, fortune, and sacred honor will remain so long as the 
Republic shall endure. Among them there is no purer and 
there are few more conspicuous reputations than that of 
Charles Carroll. 

But I should like to speak for a moment of one lesson which 
has been often forgotten, which the life of Charles Carroll 
teaches alone among his illustrious companions. 

Charles Carroll was a devoted Catholic. He belonged 
to that church which preserved for mankind religion, learning, 
literature, and law through the gloomy centuries known as the 
Dark Ages. Yet it is the only denomination of Christians 



28 Acceptance of Statues of 

against which anything of theological bitterness or bigotry 
seems to have survived amid the liberality of our enlight- 
ened day* 

Every few years we hear of secret societies, and even politi- 
cal parties, organized with the sole view of excluding the 
members of a single Christian church from their equal privi- 
leges as American citizens. Yet certainly the men of the 
Catholic faith have never been behind their countrymen, either 
as patriot citizens or as patriot soldiers. This spirit of bigotry 
would have denied the ordinary rights of Americans not only 
to Charles Carroll and his illustrious cousins, the Arch- 
bishop, to Daniel Carroll and Thomas Fitzsimmons, who were 
among the framers of the Constitution, but to Montgomery 
and Phil. Sheridan. 

The Pilgrim and the Puritan of Massachusetts encountered 
exile and the horrors of the winter voyage and the wilderness 
and the wild beast and the savage for civil and religious free- 
dom. But even they saw "as through a glass, darkly." They 
fell short of that conception of freedom which prevails now. 
Their treatment of the Quakers and the Baptists will not bear 
the light to-day. Roger Williams, in his turn, made another 
forward step and founded his State on the principle of com- 
plete tolerance of all Christians. But he, in his turn, excluded 
all men whom he did not deem to be Christians from a share 
in the government of his Commonwealth . 

The Catholic in Maryland was inspired by a like desire to 
establish principles of perfect religious tolerance. Even in 
Maryland, if Mr. Bancroft be right, as late as 1770 it was an 
offense punishable with death to deny the divinity of Christ. 
This was after the Catholic had been driven from power. 
Three of the five members of the committee who reported 
the Declaration of Independence— Mr. Jefferson, Dr. Franklin, 
and John Adams — were avowed Unitarians. So, if the law of 
Maryland had been strictly enforced, these men would have 
suffered death there if they had declared their faith. 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 29 

Now, Mr. President, I do not speak of these things by way 
of reproach. The founders of these three States, foremost 
among mankind, set their faces toward the sunlight. They 
are not to be reproached because at the time they took the first 
step they did not take the last. I mention them only to draw 
the lesson that it is not fair for the American people to remem- 
ber against the Catholics only the cruelty, or wrong, or 
blindness of past ages and to forget the cruelty or wrong in 
which our own ancestors had a share. The American Catholic, 
in the early days, laid the State which he founded on the 
eternal principle of religious toleration. The American Cath- 
olic did his full and noble share in winning the liberty and in 
framing the Constitution of the country which he loves as we 
do, and which we love as he does. 

Let the statue of Charles Carroll, the great statesman of 
the Revolutionary day, the survivor of the most illustrious 
company of men that ever assembled on the face of the earth 
since the Apostles, stand in yonder stately chamber, with the 
statue of Pere Marquette, the Discoverer, and with those of 
their peers of every State and of every faith, until time shall 
be no more! 

The cord of our destiny is made up of many strands. That 
cord we hope and believe shall never be severed. The great 
doctrines of the Declaration may be clouded and hidden, only, 
as we hope, to shine again with a new and brighter luster 
when the clouds have passed by. The Constitution may be 
amended or altered or disregarded or may perish. Other forms 
of rule may take the place of the simple but sublime mechan- 
ism our fathers devised. But the nation shall abide. The one 
principle which holds this nation together, expressed in the 
brief but comprehensive motto, E Pluribus Unum, shall never 
fail or fade — E Pluribus Unum, of many, one — of many States, 
one nation; of many races, one people; of many creeds, one 
faith; of many bended knees, one family of God. [Applause 
in the galleries.] 



3o Acceptance of Statues of 



Address of Mr. Dolliver, of Iowa. 

Mr. President: The reconstruction of the Capitol by the 
addition of the superb edifices in which the Congress now sits, 
left the old Hall of the House of Representatives deserted 
and silent; the scenes which had been enacted there only a 
memory; the voices which had been heard there oilly an 
echo of the past. There was at least a proper sentiment in 
the act of 1864, which for all time to come has made that 
historic chamber sacred by filling it with monuments which 
recall the great traditions of the national life. 

Mr. Emerson has described the art of the sculptor as the 
crudest and most helpless expression of the higher faculties of 
the human mind. It has been even more difficult to select the 
men to be commemorated than to find artists equal to the task 
of restoring the image of their person in bronze or marble. 

In selecting figures to stand in this National Gallery, the 
older States have an advantage over the new, and most of 
them have wisely chosen to perpetuate the fame of leaders 
conspicuous in their colonial life. The State of Maryland, 
among the most ancient of the American Commonwealths, 
has picked out two names famous and honored in her annals, 
both before and after the Revolution, and brings them here 
to take their place among their equals in this hall of fame. 

In the case of one of them, John Hanson, she has done a 
tardy act of justice to a man whose eminence in the public 
service had been almost lost in the waste of time; a man who 
in a peculiarly appropriate sense was the representative of the 
national ideal throughout the Revolutionary struggle. The 
other, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, had already a defiinite 
and secure place among the immortals; not altogether because 
he was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, for many 
of them have been literally forgotten, but because when he 
signed it he added his residence for the purpose, so the 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 31 

fascinating story ran, of enabling the British to find him when 
they got ready to execute him for treason, along with his 
wicked associates, according to law; and for the reason that 
he survived all his contemporaries. 

Both were men of commanding talents and irreproachable 
virtues, and each was in a true sense a distinct embodiment 
of the spirit of his age. The erection of their statues in the 
National Capitol is particularly appropriate in these days when 
the foundations of the national faith are under examination in 
the light of passing events, and when the American people 
need more than ever to learn the lessons taught by our 
fathers. 

It is always helpful and refreshing to consider the influ- 
ences which worked together in the formation of the govern- 
ment under which we live, and it can not be doubted that the 
people of Maryland acted with wisdom as well as patriotism 
when their legislature chose from the long list of her orators, 
her statesmen, her soldiers, her jurists, these two names which 
appear side by side among the signers of the protest issued 
by the "Association of the Freemen" of the State, a year 
before the Declaration of Independence was framed at Phila- 
delphia, and which are associated in honorable prominence 
throughout the whole Revolutionary period. 

In all future times as the restless throngs, passing through 
the corridors of the Capitol, pause for a moment before these 
stately figures the story of our heroic age will be told over and 
over again, as one generation after another is touched by the 
inspiration of these epoch-making lives. The State of Mary- 
land in thus honoring the men who spoke and acted for her in 
the great crisis out of which the National Government arose, 
when with her scant population and her meager resources she 
devoted her blood and her treasure, without limit and without 
terms, to the cause of independence, has encouraged the revival 
of popular interest in those studies which contribute to a 
rational interpretation of our history as a people, for it can not 



32 Acceptance of Statues of 

be denied that the tendency is strong in the midst of pros- 
perous material surroundings to treat with indifference and 
neglect the day of small things when the American Republic 
was taking its first feeble steps toward the arena of the world's 
great affairs. 

The very distance of those memorable years, not to speak 
of the intervention of tremendous national experiences more 
recent, has cut off, in a measure at least, the popular view 
of colonial times, leaving them dim and intangible; making 
Washington, for example, look more like a marble image than 
a man, and, with the exception of old Israel Putnam and Col. 
Ethan Allen, preserving hardly a human likeness of any of the 
great heroes who surrounded him. 

Now, the history of the world, and especially of our part of 
it, is the most important study that can attract anybody's atten- 
tion, notwithstanding so much of it is entirely incredible and 
so much of it obviously false. So far as it has been written 
down at all, it has been written, so it looks to me, more for the 
purpose of giving artificial importance to a few generals and a 
few kings than for the purpose of bringing into view the 
obscure millions who, after all, make up States and Com- 
monwealths. 

I have sometimes wished that some historian, some divinely 
gifted man or woman, might do for our own country what 
great creative intellects have done for other lands — what Lord 
Macaulay, for example, has done for England, or Thomas 
Carlyle for Scotland — might take us back to the sources of 
our strength; might show us the people themselves, their 
speech, their houses, their habit as they lived; might show us 
the unmistakable beginnings of the nation. For there, we are 
persuaded, around tables spread with the frugal comforts of 
life and about family altars made sublime by simple faith in 
God and man, was begun the mighty work whose outcome is 
the permanent self-government of this vast continent. 

I stood the other day in the museum of the library of the 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 33 

State Department and read over again the rude manuscript, 
in the handwriting of Mr. Jefferson, of the original draft of 
the Declaration of Independence, with its curious erasures and 
interlineations. In the same case, right by the side of it, also 
in the handwriting of Jefferson, is a clumsy drawing of the 
monument which he desired to have erected to his memory, 
together with the inscription which he would have written upon 
it. He wished to be remembered as the author of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, of the statute of Virginia for religious 
freedom, and as the father of the University of Virginia. But 
most of all he desired posterity to know him as the author of 
the Declaration of Independence — a title surely to an immor- 
tality such as belongs to only a few of the great names of 
history. 

It would be an idle thing for anybody to try to take away 
from Jefferson the renown of that handwriting. It certainly 
would be a grievous offense against the truth to try to take it 
away from Jefferson, as a famous orator of our times, now dead 
and gone, has sought to do, and give it to Thomas Paine or 
to any other man. Yet there is a grim significance in the fact 
that time in dealing with the engrossed copy of the Declaration 
of Independence has carefully preserved every letter in every 
line of the instrument itself, and at the same time with a 
gentle hand has rubbed out the name of every one of the 
illustrious group of statesmen whose signatures authenticated 
the instrument in the archives of the Continental Congress. 
Even the name of John Hancock, which scrawled across the 
page so that the King's ministers might not fail to see it, has 
faded to an indistinct impression upon the parchment, while 
not even a slender outline is visible of the hardly less noted 
name of that delegate from the province of Maryland who was 
supposed, until the higher critics got hold of his biography, 
to have added to his signature his post-office address, so that 
the King's hangmen should not get hold of the wrong 
member of the Carroll family. 
S. Doc. 13 3 



34 Acceptance of Statues of 

It may be an idle fancy, but I have sometimes thought that 
this strange disappearance of these historic names illustrates 
in a mysterious sort of way the real origin of the Declaration, 
not in the signature of a few men, but in the minds and hearts 
and united purposes of the people of all the colonies. It 
ought to be remembered that the war for independence was 
well under way before the Congress which framed the Dec- 
laration of Independence had fairly entered upon its work. 
Many of the colonies, like Maryland, under the leadership of 
her Hansons and her Carrolls, had long before declared 
their independence. Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker 
Hill had all been fought; Charlestown and Norfolk had been 
burned to ashes by the British troops; the startled garrisons 
of the Canada frontier, whatever their opinions of the Conti- 
nental Congress, had gracefully acquiesced in the will of the 
Great Jehovah as interpreted by the Green Mountain Boys; 
Washington had been appointed commander in chief of all 
the American forces, and Lord Howe, correctly measuring 
the genius of the great soldier, had already evacuated Boston. 
So that the Declaration of Independence was in no sense a 
declaration of war and hardly even a proclamation of hostili- 
ties already begun. It was an instrument which simply put 
down in writing what for generations had been taking shape 
and gathering force about quiet firesides throughout the 
British possessions. 

The colonies were one hundred and fifty years old, and 
while they were English in name and never ashamed of their 
heritage, there was not in them any deep-seated attachment 
to the British Crown. Indeed, there never had been any such 
attachment among those classes of the English people out 
of which the most of the American immigration had come. 
The distinguished Senator from Maryland [Mr. McComas] 
has referred to the speech of the Earl of Rosebery at the 
time of his inauguration as the lord rector of the University 
of Glasgow, when he took occasion to say that an enlight- 
ened colonial policy in the eighteenth century would have 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 35 

prevented the dismemberment of the British Empire. There 
may be possibly a sense in which this is true. It is 
at least certain that such a colonial policy as prevailed in 
England in the eighteenth century, and in Spain up to the 
end of the nineteenth, would have left the British throne 
without the loyalty of a commonwealth of Englishmen any- 
where in the world. If I correctly remember Lord Rose- 
bery's words on that occasion, he suggested that if the elder 
Pitt had remained in the House of Commons and had kept 
the counsel of the King, a way would have been found to 
make a settlement of the problem consistent with the integ- 
rity of the Kingdom. 

Possibly that would have been so; at an}- rate, it is certain 
that our fathers could speak no such words .for themselves as 
were spoken for them in the Parliament of England by Edmund 
Burke and the Earl of Chatham. I have no lack of apprecia- 
tion of the enchanting dream, to which the Senator has referred, 
in which Lord Rosebery relates what might have happened if 
the King's subjects in America had held fast to their alle- 
giance. In his vision he sees them increasing and multiplying 
as the United States has increased and multiplied, their repre- 
sentation in the House of Commons gradually outnumbering 
the membership at home, until at last there would have 
appeared a strange spectacle — the Queen, led by her ministers 
and followed by both Houses of Parliament, with pomp and 
ceremony, transferring the capital of the Empire from London 
to New York or Chicago, leaving the old capital only a 
museum of political antiquities, a mere military outpost in a 
world-wide British Empire. 

It may be an ungracious thing to disturb an hallucination so 
splendid, but for all that it is a vision of the day, for it is 
impossible to imagine a parliamentary wisdom able to prevent 
a free English race from taking possession in their own name 
of the continent they had won from the wilderness; and it is 
harder still to conceive of a statesmanship equal to the task of 
turning aside the purpose of God in ordering the destiny of the 



36 Acceptance of Statues of 

New World. I have said that the independence of America 
originated not with the leaders of the people, but with the 
people themselves. So that it is literally true that members of 
the Continental Congress, who, like Charles Carroll, shared 
in the proceedings only long enough to sign the Declaration, 
weeks after it had been framed and passed, lose nothing of 
their claim on the gratitude of mankind from the fact that 
their participation in the national movement was mainly in the 
quiet neighborhoods where they lived and among the people 
with whom they conversed from day to day. 

American independence was first of all declared in the 
churches, in the newspapers, in the courts of law — in the 
churches in io,odo sermons based upon texts taken from the 
militant literature of the old Jews; in the newspapers wherever 
a free press had been set up, as it had been in Maryland from 
the first settlement of the province down to the time when 
Charles Carroll, under an assumed name, leaped into 
distinction as an advocate of the national cause in a series of 
controversial letters; in the courts of law wherever the obnox- 
ious acts of Parliament were brought in controversy. Indeed, 
there is a sense in which the independence of America may be 
said to have originated in the court-houses of Massachusetts 
and Virginia and to have been first declared by the attorneys at 
law in the ordinary practice of their profession. It is interest- 
ing if not instructive, in view of the manifold popular prejudices 
which have beset the learned occupations of the bar in after 
generations, to recall the beautiful harmony which once existed 
between the embattled farmers and the lawyers of that day 
with their quillets, their cases, their tenures, and their tricks. 

John Hancock was an important citizen of Boston, possibly 
the most important, and just after the passage of the stamp 
act he imported into that town a cargo of Madeira wine, of 
which, it would appear from the record, our fathers were 
accustomed to take a little for their stomach's sake and their 
often infirmities; and owing to the universal feeling which 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 37 

everywhere prevailed against the stamp act, Mr. Hancock felt 
at liberty to unload his cargo in the night without going 
through the formality of paying the duties required by law. 
But as soon as the revenue officers found it out they brought 
an action against him to recover the delinquent taxes, and he 
hired a Boston lawyer by the name of John Adams to defend 
him. Now, Mr. Adams, according to the custom of the day, 
was keeping a diary, and his entries in the little book about 
this time are very entertaining. For example, "Sunday, at 
home with my family, thinking." 

If Mr. Adams, after the manner of the modern practitioner, 
had charged Mr. Hancock for lying awake at nights thinking 
about his case, the latter patriot would not have had money 
enough left to reach the Philadelphia Congress, of which he 
had already been elected a thember, for a similar entry repeat- 
edly appears in the diary. For example: ' ' Christinas; at home; 
thinking, reading, searching concerning taxation without con- 
sent." It was an epoch-making case, and John Adams went 
into it like Peter the Hermit preaching the first crusade. It 
was not a question of fact; it was a grim and momentous 
question of law. What Mr. Adams said is fortunately pre- 
served. ' ' My client, Mr. Hancock, ' ' said he ' ' never consented 
to it. He never voted for it himself and he never voted for 
any man to make such a law for him." There is the first half 
of the American Revolution in one sentence. That case never 
came to trial. They took a good deal of testimony, and it 
was continued from time to time, but never brought to a final 
judgment, because the next spring, along about the middle of 
April, it was settled out of court by the battle of Lexington. 
In the meantime some curious litigation was going on in 
one of the Southern colonies. By the original charter of 
Virginia the established Church of England was made a part' 
of the civil establishment of the colony, and the salaries of the 
parsons, as in the case of other public officials, were paid out 
of the public treasury, in tobacco, which was the standard of 



38 Acceptance of Stahies of 

value of the time. In the depression of business which followed 
the French and Indian war there was a universal demand for 
the retrenchmemt of expenditures, which took the form, as it 
commonly does in such cases, of a reduction of official salaries. 
They cut them all down, including the salaries of the parsons, 
which were made payable no longer in tobacco, unless it were 
reckoned at 2 pence a pound. 

As long as that was about the value of tobacco, everybody 
was satisfied, including the parsons, until tobacco rose con- 
siderably, when the}' began to see the difference and raised a 
clamor so loud that it finally reached the ears of the Bishop 
of London, who induced the King to veto that act of the 
legislative assembly of Virginia. The parsons took the 
position that the act having been vetoed it became void, and, 
being duly advised by counsel, t"hey began actions to recover 
the salaries due them and withheld without authority of law. 
The judges, who were appointees of the Crown, very promptly 
and, from a superficial legal standpoint, very properly decided 
that the King having vetoed the act it was void, and all 
proceedings taken by virtue of it without legal effect, and 
that therefore the parsons had the right to recover. But 
having no jurisdiction at common law to render a verdict 
sounding in damages, they took a test case and sent it to the 
jury to determine the amount of the recovery. 

At this point there appears upon the scene a strange and 
now almost fabulous figure, the most marvelous popular orator 
who ever spoke our tongue, Patrick Henry, a young Virginia 
lawyer, with his first important case in court. Tradition 
relates that he was awkward and ungainly in his appearance, 
and at first halting and lame in his speech, but that as he 
warmed with his theme he rose to a splendid level of 
eloquence, and when he had finished had made for his name 
an immortal place in the legends of patriotism and liberty. 
What he said also is fortunately preserved. He denied the 
right of the English Crown to veto an act of the colonial 






Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 39 

assembly in a matter in which the colony alone was con- 
cerned. "When the King of England," said he, "in the 
interest of a privileged class, interposes the royal veto 
against an act of the assembly of Virginia in a matter 
relating exclusively to the affairs of the colony, he ceases to 
be a father of his people and degenerates into a tyrant who 
has forfeited all rights to obedience." 

There is the second half of the American Revolution in 
one sentence; and that Virginia jury, which patiently listened 
to the instructions of the court, quietly filed out into its 
retiring room without food or drink, water alone excepted, 
and immediately came back with a verdict for the plaintiff, 
assessing his damages at 1 cent, was far gone along the main 
road to the independence of the United States. 

It was in the midst of little occurrences like these that we 
must seek the original draft of the Declaration of the Fourth 
of Juiy, and nowhere among the colonies was this spirit of 
manly resistance more universal than among the people of the 
province of Maryland, where the Carrolls and the Hansons 
had for years given the weight of their names and the 
influence of their fortunes to the aspirations of the community 
toward a larger and a truer national life. 

That aspiration found its first expression in an outburst 
against wrongs no longer tolerable; but if the grievances of 
the colonies had been the only cause of the Revolution, or 
even its most important motive, the opportunity was never 
lacking to settle the dispute on the basis of a full concession 
of all American claims. In fact, long before the war was over 
every objectionable act of Parliament had been repealed and 
every reasonable complaint redressed, so that it may be prop- 
erly said that underlying all the abuses against which our 
fathers protested, and deeper than all the blunders of the 
King's ministers in dealing with men of their own race, lay 
the profound and intuitive purpose of the people to create a 
government of their own and to take into their own keeping 



4<d Acceptance of Statues of 

the principles of civil liberty, which were already a part of 
their inheritance. 

The ideal which for more than a generation had filled all 
American hearts was realized in a measure when Charles 
Carroll of Carrollton put his name down on the solemn 
parchment, in a larger measure when John Hanson, five 
years later, took his seat as President of the United States in 
Congress assembled, and in full measure at length when 
Washington, a deputy from Virginia, assumed the chair as 
president of the Convention which framed the Constitution. 

For unless a government had been organized out of the chaos 
which followed Yorktown the war for independence would 
have enslaved the country and not made it free. These three 
charters, the Declaration, the Articles of Confederation, and 
the Constitution, have come to us scarred but not disfigured by 
the battles of more than a hundred years. The Articles of 
Confederation, whatever their defects, served their purpose 
while the war lasted, and though they illustrate the difficulty 
of founding governments and waging war at the same time, 
they stand as sufficient witness of that constructive genius 
which belongs to the English-speaking race. 

The Constitution of the United States remains, in the words 
of Mr. Gladstone, "the most wonderful work ever struck off at 
a given time by the brain and purpose of man," while the 
Declaration of Independence, interpreted as it ought to be in the 
light of our national history, is still the most priceless treasure 
in the political riches of the world. The Revolutionary govern- 
ment fell, under the enlightened criticism of the men who 
organized it, leaving John Hanson, its first President, so com- 
pletely covered up in the debris that it required an act of the 
legislature of Maryland more than a hundred years afterwards 
to rescue his name from oblivion; while the Constitution which 
followed it had to lean awkwardly on the Farewell Address of 
Washington, the unrivaled common sense of Chief Justice Mar- 
shall, and the colossal intellect of Daniel Webster, until in the 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 41 

fullness of time the sword of Ulysses S. Grant gave it a fixed 
relation to the course of human events. [Applause in the 
galleries.] For in the last analysis the Army of the Potomac 
was the convention of 1787 under the head of "unfinished 
business. ' ' 

Over every field gathered the patriots of the Revolution, 
for history must associate with the men who laid the founda- 
tions of the Republic in blessed comradeship forever with 
the unnumbered hosts of the volunteer army which answered 
the summons of Abraham Lincoln for the defense of the 
national life. 

It can not be more important to be born than it is to live. 
The Constitution of the United States had hardly been ordained 
before a school of politics grew up which began to teach that 
any part of the country, when it so desired, could work the 
total wreck of our institutions by the simple expedient of 
withdrawing from any further participation in them. The 
doctrine, common to all sections, was an heirloom of the colo- 
nial period. In such a harness the colonies had gone through 
a century of Indian warfare and had sealed with their blood the 
independence of their country. It has sometimes been said 
that the doctrine of State sovereignty was the last desperate 
refuge of the slave power in America. On the contrary, it was 
the original fortress of public liberty in the United States. Our 
ancestors were only slowly habituated to look for the protection 
of their rights beyond the State which they could control to the 
nation which the}* could not control, and which they were only 
touched in a distant and unsatisfactory way. 

That is exactly what Mr. Jefferson meant, in the days of the 
embargo, when he said: " I felt the foundations of the Govern- 
ment shaking under my feet by the New England townships." 
For, indeed, it was possible for an upheaval of local passion, 
or prejudice, or interest, to shake the foundations of the Gov- 
ernment, during that long period when political factions were 
accustomed to enforce their decrees by secret hostility and even 



42 Acceptance of Statues of 

open conspiracy against the national life. It remained for a 
later, and I soberly believe a better, generation to measure 
without despair the chaos of civil strife, to walk into it, to fight 
the way of the people through it, to lift up a spotless flag 
above it, and in the midst of the flame and the smoke of battle 
to renew the covenant of blood made by our fathers, that gov- 
ernment of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not 
perish from the earth. 

After nearly a century of doubt and uncertainty some things, 
at least, have been made secure. Not very long ago one of our 
most honored university presidents was reported to have said 
that unless certain poorly defined ideas of his own in relation 
to the industrial life of our times prevail, within twenty-five 
years an emperor will be seated in the chair of Washington, 
while even in the Senate of the United States, the anxiety, 
sometimes real and sometimes pretended, has grown familiar 
by repetition, that the Government established by our fathers 
has broken away from its moorings and is now adrift upon 
high seas, headed toward the rocks, nobody knows where. 

We ought to keep company with no such opinions. They 
belong to the blackness of the darkness of a past generation. 
From 1865 forward to eternity, whatever else happens, the 
American Republic shall live — live to answer the accusers of 
the people, live to vindicate the faith of our fathers, live to 
send forth the light of civil liberty to races, not yet grown 
to the stature of freedom, and to nations yet unborn. 

And not only has the Constitution of the United States 
had to contend with influences always adverse and sometimes 
malevolent in their hostility, but the Declaration of Independ- 
ence has passed through vicissitudes hardly less perilous to its 
moral integrity. Mr. Jefferson originally wrote, "All men are 
created equal and independent." He then struck out the 
words "and independent," leaving our sublime political dogma 
standing nakedly there, "All men are created equal." 

By that he did not mean that everybody comes into this 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 43 

world with exactly the same equipment of mind or body, or 
character, or estate. Our fathers, so far as I have been able 
to find out, were men of immense practical good sense. They 
knew perfectly well the differences which necessarily exist 
among men, arising from the nature of things. They had no 
quarrel with the framework of society. Their quarrel was 
with the abuses of despotism, the inequalities arising, not 
from the nature of things, but from the maladministration 
of governments. It was against these that they uttered the 
challenge of divine justice, "All men are created equal" in 
their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

But even in that narrower sense the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence has had a hard time of it from first to last. For 
nearly a century the institution of slavery put the Declaration 
to an open shame before the world. Mr. Jefferson, though 
himself a holder of slaves, understood this perfectly, for in 
his Notes on Virginia, speaking of slavery, he put on record 
his own conviction on the subject, without ambiguity and 
without reserve, in these words, as portentous to-day as they 
ever were before: "I tremble for the safety of my country 
when I remember that God is just and that his justice can 
not sleep forever. ' ' And Washington evidently had the same 
view of the matter, for if you will examine his last will and 
testament hidden yonder in the Library of Congress exactly 
as he wrote it, you will see that, among the last acts of his 
life, he manumitted all his slaves, tenderly making provision 
for those who were too young to work and for the infirmities 
of those who were too old, and adding a pious expression of 
hope that the odious institution might speedily pass out of the 
life of the rising Republic. It was a blot upon the character 
of the whole country, made respectable by the laws of nearly 
every colon}-, North and South alike. It did speedily pass 
away from most of the States. The climate as well as the 
conscience of New England was against it, so that gradually its 
influence narrowed within the territory farther south, where 



44 Acceptance of Statues of 

for generations it remained, cursing the black man and the 
white man alike, and illustrating in the end the infinite judg- 
ment of God upon every form of injustice against the hands 
that are hardened by toil and the backs of men bent under 
the burdens of society. I know that while that conflict was 
in progress there were some who claimed that our fathers 
meant to say that liberty was suitable for white people only, 
but when Mr. Lincoln, in the great debates of 1858, drove 
Stephen A. Douglas from that position, he used only the 
legitimate weapons of history and reason. 

I can not believe that our fathers, after they had been com- 
missioned of heaven to write, in the face of the kingdoms and 
monarchies of this world, our manuscript of equal rights — I 
can not believe that they deliberately put out of their calcu- 
lations any men or any race of men. To believe it would be to 
impeach not only the integrity of their minds, but the sincerity 
of their hearts. I refuse to do either. On the contrary, the 
longer I live the more perfect my conviction becomes that there 
is in this world, after all, only one question of politics, and that 
is the question of equal chances for men and women to win in 
the race of life. [Applause in the galleries.] 

Questions of war and of diplomacy, of peace and education 
become significant only as they are bound up together with the 
rights and welfare of the weary and -heavy-laden millions of the 
earth. Toward the consummation of popular , freedom human 
society has steadily approached. That universal conclusion will 
surely be obtained. Kings and royal families can not stop the 
course of history. The end is inevitable, because it is right, 
that this world of ours, so long the theater of ambition and the 
prejudices of rank and caste, of race and creed; of blood and 
privilege and wealth, shall one day in the coming era throw off 
the tyranny of all these and in their place raise up unto honor 
the enduring aristocracy of upright manhood. [Applause in 
the galleries.] 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 45 

That is the message which comes from one century across 
another to us and to our children; and long as this stately 
building stands here on the eminence which Washington chose 
for its foundations these favorite sons of colonial Maryland, his 
friends and counselors, whose statues we unveil to-day, shall 
repeat the message in the ears of all nations and of all ages. 
[Applause in the galleries.] 



46 Acceptance of Statues of 



ADDRESS OF MR. DEPEW, OF NEW YORK. 

Mr. President: Materialism is ever crowding with increas- 
ing force upon sentiment. It is destructive of ideals. As 
wealth increases and competition grows and larger opportuni- 
ties intensify the struggle for existence or for great accumula- 
tions, unselfish sentiment becomes more distant and difficult. 
The war of the Revolution was, in its best and highest sense, 
inspired by sentiment and for a principle. Actual oppression 
had not reached that acute form which had precipitated dther 
revolts. As Burke said: 

In other countries the people, more simple and of a less mercurial cast, 
judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here 
they anticipate the evil and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the 
badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance, and 
snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze. 

The Continental Congress differed from all other bodies which 
have overthrown and created governments. All of its members 
were men of substance, who had nothing to gain, beyond the 
establishment of those principles of government in which they 
believed, and everything to lose in the contest. Carroll was 
the richest of the signers and the second richest man in the 
United Colonies. Washington was the wealthiest, his fortune 
being reckoned at $750,000, while Carroll assessed himself at 
a half million dollars. Hancock was the wealthiest man in Mas- 
sachusetts, Morris in New York, and in each delegation was 
some one similarly situated in his colony. It was mostly an 
American convention. Forty-nine of the signers were born in 
this country, two in England, two in Scotland, two in Ireland, 
and one in Wales. They were all thoroughly versed in the 
principles of English liberty and in the rights of British sub- 
jects. They knew what they were entitled to under the great 
Charter and the Bill of Rights. Their average age was 45 
years. The oldest were Franklin and Hopkins, who were 70; 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 47 

and the youngest were Rutledge and Lynch, who were 27. 
Hancock was 40 and Jefferson 33 years. 

The proportion of lawyers to the whole number was numer- 
ically less and the doctors were greater than in any subsequent 
Congress of the United States. Sixteen were lawyers, 9 mer- 
chants, 5 doctors, 5 planters, 3 farmers, and 1 clergyman. The 
other 17 were, like Franklin, men of letters and of science, who 
had made their mark in various careers. Eighteen were gradu- 
ates of American universities, 3 of Cambridge, England, and 1 
of Edinburgh University. Twenty-one were liberally educated 
in institutions of learning in this country and abroad and by 
private tutors and travel. Eleven were self-taught, but they 
were by no means the least learned of their associates. Roger 
Sherman, who began life as a shoemaker, was a man of such 
transcendent ability that he was regarded in the Convention as 
its ablest lawyer and possessing a judgment to which universal 
deference was paid. None of them had any title, nor were they 
statesmen, as that term was then understood. They were the 
products of a self-governing people, who had developed, in 
the course of a century and a quarter, a habit of. independence. 
The colonial forces had learned the art of war and been the 
most efficient soldiers of Great Britain in the struggle on this 
continent with France. The signers were not seeking fame by 
speeches which would command listening senates, for they sat 
with closed doors and without reporters. We know that the 
discussions were upon a lofty plane and carried on with univer- 
sal ability and power. Jefferson bears witness that John Adams 
on the side of independence was a Colossus in debate. These 
fifty-six statesmen represented accurately the constituency 
which elected them. They voiced the sentiment of the vast 
majority of the American people. They were so conspicuous 
and influential that the British Government would gladly 
have rewarded them with the titles which are now so much 
coveted by the residents of the British colonies all over the 
world and granted to them as personal favor or distinction. 



48 Acceptance of Statues of 

They not only spurned these honors, but were conscious that 
if they failed in their revolt their lives were forfeited for 
treason and their estates confiscated. Two of them were 
already proscribed by proclamation as beyond all possibility 
of pardon if the colonies were subdued — Samuel Adams and 
John Hancock. 

In other revolutions the violent men, the demagogues, those 
who had everything to gain by disorder, were in the main 
thrown to the front. With success came the struggle for 
power, and bloody proscriptions were as merciless and as 
general by those who succeeded in capturing the State against 
their associates in the Revolution as against the tyrants who 
had been expelled. This happened in the French Revolution, 
and has been the ordinary course of history in the South 
American Republics. But the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence never claimed for themselves any rewards of 
their countrymen for what they had done. None of them 
made any effort to seize the Government or to secure special 
individual favors. They knew what they were doing and that 
it was for posterity. Two of them became Presidents of the 
United States and one Vice-President, but the succession after 
Washington of John Adams and after Adams of Jefferson in 
the cleavage which came and lasted until the civil war between 
State rights and the nation were the natural choice of the free 
will of a free people. 

Most of them were selected at different times during their 
lives for the diplomatic service, for Congress or the Senate, for 
the judiciary or the executive office in their several States, but 
they performed their duties as conscientiously and retired to 
private life as willingly as if they had never had any connec- 
tion with the creation of the institutions which they served. 
Although their education had been local and their public life 
in colonial affairs, they commanded as diplomats the admiration 
of the oldest cabinets of Europe. The securing of the consent 
of monarchical France to an alliance, with the assistance of her 
fleet and armies, was a marvel of diplomacy, while the judicial 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 49 

decisions, acts of Congress, reports of Cabinet ministers, and 
state papers of the fathers has guided the course of Government 
from their day to ours and remain an unequaled monument of 
creative wisdom. 

The course of Rome for many centuries was controlled by the 
mysterious revelation of the Sibylline leaves, but there was no 
mystery about the Declaration of Independence, no mystery 
about the Constitution of the United States, no mystery about 
the Farewell Address of Washington, and no mystery in the 
writings which have come to us from the fathers of the 
Revolution. 

Forty-seven lived to see the independence which they had 
declared seven years before recognized by Great Britain. 
Forty-three hailed the new Constitution which was adopted in 
1787, and which is our guide and government to-day, practi- 
cally unchanged. Happily for the country, three of them lived 
for more than fifty years after that eventful epoch-making 
Fourth of July. The influence not only of the teachings, but 
of the example, of these surviving signers during the first half 
of our existence can not be calculated. The death of Jefferson 
and of Adams, occurring on the same day, on the Fourth of 
July, on the fiftieth anniversary of the hours during which the 
Declaration of Independence was adopted, brought vividly 
before the people the sentiment and the principles for which 
the signers stood. Their political antagonism had been for- 
gotten in the last two decades of their lives, and in their union 
in death there appeared, as it were, on that memorable day 
spread upon the heavens in view of all the people the immortal 
Declaration of Independence; and on the one side Jefferson, the 
author, and on the other side Adams, the Colossus in debate, 
by whose eloquence it was unanimously agreed to. 

Charles Carroll of Carrollton lived six years longer. 
He spent twelve years abroad, studying in the best institutions 
of England and of the Continent. His wealth and social posi- 
tion at home brought him in contact with the leading minds of 
those countries. He was four years in the Temple at London 
S. Doc. 13 4 



50 Acceptance of Statues of 

studying law. At .the age of 27 he returned to his home 
equipped with every appliance of opportunity and of learning 
that the times afforded him. This was in 1764. The colonies 
were aflame with the discussion of taxation without representa- 
tion. Carroll instantly jumped into the arena. His pam- 
phlets commanded universal attention. To the royal governor 
of Maryland, who had endeavored to impose a tax not 
sanctioned by the legislature, he wrote this revolutionary 
sentiment and dangerous expression for a colonial subject 
twelve years before the Declaration of Independence: "In a 
land of freedom this arbitrary exercise of prerogative must 
not and will not be endured." 

Ten years later and two }^ears before the final act, confer- 
ring with some members of Parliament, one of them said: 
"If you revolt, we will send 6,000 veteran English soldiers 
to y our country, who will march from one end of it to the 
other, for there is nothing with you which could resist them." 
Carroll's answer was: "So they may, but they will be 
masters only on the spot on which they encamp. If we are 
beaten on the plains we will retreat to the mountains." 
Carroll was not present when the Declaration of Independ- 
ence was passed. Maryland had suffered little and was not 
feeling seriously the effects of the extraordinary exercise of 
the royal prerogative, so the Maryland legislature was reluc- 
tant to take the extreme step of separation.* Carroll made 
it his mission as a member of that legislature to bring his 
State into line. Nothing could resist his impetuous patriotism 
and sound reason. He had more at stake than any of them, 
and he brought his State finally to withdraw its opposition 
and to authorize its Delegates to sign the Declaration. Then 
with this mission, won mainly by his efforts, he went to 
Philadelphia and took his place as a Delegate in Congress. 

When the time for signing came, and in bantering each 
other as to whether in case of failure they would hang singly 
or hang together, the remark was made to Carroll, "You 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 51 

can escape, because there are so many Charles Carrolls." 
His answer, immediately emphasized by the inscription fol- 
lowing his pen, was, "Charles Carroll of Carrollton." 
It is the only title in our Revolution. There have been many 
men of distinction in different ages and countries whose proud 
boast was that they had and could transmit to their descend- 
ants their name as of the duchy, the earldom, or the barony 
which had been bestowed upon them by royal grant for dis- 
tinguished services or as favors of the Crown. But here was 
a distinction not bestowed, not granted, but assumed by the 
writer, not as a title of nobility, not as a claim, like the 
lands at Blenheim, to a great estate conveyed by a grateful 
country, but as the location and description by which the 
executioner could find him if the cause of liberty failed. The 
members of revolutionary conventions, as a rule, when the 
revolution was successful, have met with bloody deaths or 
been driven into exile. But the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence experienced all their lives that sweetest incense 
to a patriot and a statesman — the love and reverence and 
admiration of a grateful people. 

A writer records a visit made to Carroll at his home when 
he was the only survivor of that immortal band. He was at 
that time 95 years of age. The visitor says that as he entered 
the parlor from a bundle of shawls on the sofa came a figure 
so slight and emaciated that it seemed scarcely human. But 
Mr. Carroll began at once to question him about the Vir- 
ginia statesman from whom he had come and then to discuss 
the old days in the light of the new. That visitor, a man of 
imagination, cared little for what was said. He was grasping 
a hand which had signed the Declaration of Independence. 
He stood in the presence of the last of the immortals. There 
must have appeared to him the Congress in session on that 
great day. He could see Benjamin Harrison, of Virginia, 
seize John Hancock, who had just been elected President, and 
carry and place him in the chair, saying, "We will show 



52 Acceptance of Statues of , 

mother Britain how little we care for her by making the 
Massachusetts man our President whom she has excluded 
from pardon by public proclamation." 

He would see Benjamin Franklin calling attention to the 
fact that upon the back of the President's chair was a picture 
which represented the rising sun, the same chair which Wash- 
ington occupied eleven years afterwards as President of the 
Constitutional Convention, when the sun of American liberty 
had risen, never to set. He would recall that then and there 
was the dawn of a new era in the affairs of the world. Con- 
stitutional liberty, self-government, the equality of all before 
the law, absolute religious freedom, and freedom of the press. 
These were new forces, which, if successful, must permeate all 
countries and affect the institutions of every land. Charles 
Carroll at 95, fifty-six years after he had signed the Dec- 
laration of Independence, could look back triumphantly at the 
results. He could see three generations of his own descend- 
ants enjoying its blessings. He had witnessed the perils of 
the Confederation, the cementing of the bond of union, and 
the creation of an imperishable nation by the Constitution of 

1787. 

As a friend and adviser of Washington he had taken part in 
that formative period of the first two Presidential terms, when 
the fabric was so feeble and tottering daily to a fall, and when 
it was held together mainly by the character and confidence 
of that foremost man of all the world, "The Father of his 
Country." He had witnessed the perils of a French alliance, 
which had been avoided, and seen the successful issue of a 
second war with Great Britain. His country was strong and 
prosperous. Every nation had its representatives at its capital. 
It possessed a powerful navy and mercantile marine, which 
carried its commerce all around the globe, its flag was on 
every sea and in every port, and the prosperity and happiness 
of its people were unexampled. There was but one danger, 
and that was acute in 1832 — the danger of disunion. When 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 53 

the Declaration was signed, in 1776, the perils of the country 
were wholly from without. In 1832 they were entirely from 
within. 

" One people " was the term used in reference to the citizens 
of the Thirteen United States of America in the Declaration of 
Independence. "We, therefore, the Representatives of the 
United States, in Congress assembled, appealing to the 
Supreme Judge of the world, declare that these United States 
are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States," 
was the closing of that document. "That the people of the 
United States, in order to form a more perfect union," are the 
words under which our Constitution was written. Washington 
received his sword from the Congress of the United Colonies, 
and returned it when triumphant to the Congress of the United 
States. All who were born and all who accepted citizenship 
under that Declaration and that Constitution came into the 
inalienable inheritance of all the rights, the powers, and the 
liberties of the Union of the States. The danger to the Union 
from the conflicting ideas of State rights and nationality, which 
clouded the last days of Charles Carroll, culminated in 
1 86 1 into the bloodiest civil war of modern times. 

That struggle it is now clearly seen was a providential inter- 
position in our affairs, not only to extirpate slavery, but to 
perpetuate the Union. We witness the unprecedented spectacle 
of the victors and of those who failed, both fighting as our 
blood only can fight for an ideal, now sitting side by side in 
this Congress, equally loyal to the flag and to the Union. The 
passions of civil war have died while the generation which 
fought it is living. With this question settled the progress 
and development of the country in all that constitutes the 
wealth and power of a nation has been five times greater in 
the thirty-seven years since the civil war than in the preceding 
eighty-nine years. 

We can place among the immortals John Hanson, who has 
also been selected by the Commonwealth of Maryland as her 



54 Acceptance of Statues of 

representative in the gallery of State patriots in this Capitol, as 
President of the Congress of the Confederation during the later 
years of the struggle, and he had appended to his name the 
unique title of ' ' President of the United States in Congress 
Assembled." As the signers, from above, note the honor this 
day conferred upon the one of their number who lingered 
longest on this side they recognize that, great as were their 
aspirations, fond as were their hopes, mighty as were their 
dreams of the future of their country, yet in every element 
which makes a happy people enjoying the blessings of the 
largest liberty and a nation foremost in the affairs of the world, 
the Republic which they created has surpassed all they hoped 
or dreamed or prayed for. [Applause in the galleries ] 



Charles Carroll a?id Jolm Hanson. 55 



Address of Mr. Bacon, of Georgia. 

Mr. President: I am unwilling that the exercises of this 
most interesting occasion shall close without any word being 
spoken from either of the four original States lying south of 
the Potomac. In the arrangements made for these exercises 
it was not designed that this should be so. Of these four 
States, if not of the entire thirteen, in Revolutionary times, 
Virginia will be recognized as easily the first. 

And thus it was that it was deemed proper that a Senator 
from Virginia should be heard upon this occasion. It seemed 
to be peculiarly fitting that this should be so on the presenta- 
tion of these two statues. 

John Hanson was the first President of the 'United States 
in Congress assembled, and a Virginian was the first President 
of the United States under the Constitution. 

Charles Carroll was a signer of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and the framer of the Declaration of Independence 
was a Virginian, while the soldier who made that Declaration 
good was also a Virginian. 

Recognizing all this, the senior Senator from Virginia [Mr. 
Daniel] had been selected to speak as the representative, in 
a sense, of these four original States. All will agree that no 
more happy selection could have been made. Unhappily, 
since these exercises have begun and within a few minutes 
just past, the information has been brought to us that the 
illness of the Senator from Virginia will prevent his being 
heard to-day, and, at this last moment, the duty has been 
unexpectedly devolved upon me. 

Mr. President, I would not undertake at any time to sup- 
ply the place of this eloquent Virginian, and in any event 
extemporaneous speech would not be fitting here to-day. 
But without attempting more than a word, I will be par- 
doned for saying that the failure of Virginia, or of North 



56 Acceptance of Statues of 

Carolina, or of South Carolina, or of Georgia, to be heard 
to-day would be misconstrued, if from such failure it was 
understood that the fact that statues to John Hanson and 
Charles Carroll were to be presented here to-day had 
been passed over by them as a matter not worthy of atten- 
tion or of speech from them; for it can be confidently said 
that not only now but at all times since the date of the 
signing of the Declaration of Independence the people of 
those four States have been loyal and true to every utterance 
of that great instrument. They are not only loyal to its 
great principles, but they revere the memory of its great 
authors. 

Mr. President, not only in sentiment, but so far as might be 
expressed in acts, the devotion of the people of these States 
to the principles of that instrument has been manifested, and 
they have united in the effort to do honor to those who framed 
that immortal instrument, and plighted their lives and fortunes 
to its maintenance. 

Among other things, it may be mentioned that in my own 
State of Georgia there are a number of counties which have 
been named for framers and signers of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. I can not enumerate all of them, but I will mention 
as pertinent to this occasion that not only are there in Georgia 
the counties of Jefferson and Hancock and Franklin and Gwin- 
nett and Hall and Walton, and others bearing the names of 
these illustrious signers, and named in their honor, but there is 
also in the State the county of Carroll, named in honor of the 
renowned Marylander. 

Mr. President, if I may be pardoned the suggestion, as I have 
sat here and listened to these eloquent speeches I have noticed 
in the niches of this Chamber the busts of all the Vice-Presidents 
of the United States, and the thought has occurred to me that 
it would be fitting if at some time the Government of the 
United States would erect a hall for the immortals — the con- 
secrated band who proclaimed the great Declaration which 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 57 

challenged the political dogmas of a thousand years and defied 
the greatest military power of all the earth. 

We have the Chamber of the old House of Representatives, 
in which each State is authorized to place the statues of two of 
its most illustrious citizens. But, sir, this work of thus com- 
memorating these founders of the Republic should not be left 
to the States alone. The time may come when the old Senate 
Chamber will be vacated by the Supreme Court when a fitting 
building may be erected for the judicial department of the 
Government. 

When that time comes, Mr. President, it will be fitting that 
that historic chamber shall be chosen for the hall of these 
immortals, and that therein shall be placed, to be forever 
preserved, the effigies in marble and bronze of the deathless 
framers and signers of the Declaration of Independence. 



58 Acceptance of Statues of 



Address of Mr. Wellington, of Maryland. 

Mr. President: Maryland, one of the original thirteen 
States, to-day sends greeting to her sister Commonwealths, 
and, as a token of her steadfast faith in the principles advo- 
cated by the immortal Declaration of Independence, places in 
the American Pantheon the statues of two of her most illus- 
trious citizens of the Revolutionary period — Charles Carroll 
of Carrollton, to whose untiring energy and aggressive policy 
the adoption of the Declaration of Independence is in a 
great measure due, and John Hanson, who was the first 
' ' President of the United States in Congress assembled ' ' under 
the government of the Articles of Confederation. The pages 
of her history are illumined by many names which shall live 
as long as the American nation survives or the records of its 
history are remembered. In peace and war, in the period of 
settlement, during all the mutations of fortune in the Revo- 
lution, in the adoption of the Constitution, in the progress 
of the nation, in the great civil struggle, and in the years 
subsequent thereunto unto the present, she hath wrought her 
part through and by the heroic efforts of her sous. From 
among them all have been selected these two as being most 
worthy to represent her in the -Temple of Statues at the 
National Capitol. , 

When the adventurous spirits — heroic mariners and com- 
manders of Europe — in the sixteenth century sought, dis- 
covered, and explored the New World, in which they fondly 
imagined the fabled treasures of El Dorado might be hidden, 

They found not what they sought, 

But Fame with her bay wreath dowers m 

The hardy band, for they found the land, 
And the land that they found is ours. 

But, sir, in the century following, the North American con- 
tinent became the trysting place and haven of refuge of the 
oppressed of all European nationalities, who pledged them- 
selves to liberty, religious toleration, and self-government. 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 59 

The struggles of settlement, the battles for British supremacy, 
are an important page in the annals of our country. The 
Puritan of New England, the adherent of Roger Williams 
who founded the Providence Plantations, the Quaker followers 
of Penn, the Cavaliers of Virginia, the Catholic adherents of 
Leonard Calvert in Maryland, the Huguenots of the Carolinas, 
were unlike in many things, but the mainspring of their action 
was freedom, independence, self-government. 

The province of Maryland was granted by Charles the 
First to Csecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore, bounded with much 
greater dimensions than now constitute the territory of the 
State. A number of counties in West Virginia, Delaware, 
and a portion of Pennsylvania were included. But, with Lord 
Fairfax upon the one hand and the eminent Quaker, William 
Penn, on the other, the boundaries were circumscribed and 
narrowed after many bloody encounters and valiant fights. 
Lord Baltimore held the colony as a feudal principality, but 
never viewed it personally, having delegated to his brother, 
Leonard Calvert, the rights of government. He was a noble, 
righteous, and liberal man, and under his leadership the col- 
onists of Maryland "laid the foundation broad and deep of 
civil and religious liberty." 

As it was in Maryland, so it gradually became in her sister 
colonies. The same aspiration was felt, the same environment 
sought, the same object contemplated in each and every one of 
the colonies finally dominated by Great Britain. New Amster- 
dam became New York; the Spaniards returned to the south- 
land; the French, after a desperate struggle, were forced to 
abandon the mainland entirely; and thus in the passage of time 
all elements were consolidated under English influence and the 
British spirit of liberty pervaded the conglomerate mass. 

The founders of the colonies sacrificed the civilization of 
Europe to avoid coercion, and their decendants were deeply 
imbued with the spirit or liberty. With the ax in one hand 
and the rifle in the other, they penetrated the wilderness, sub- 
dued nature, and conquered the aboriginal inhabitants. As 



60 Acceptance of Statues of 

they grew and prospered the English Government withdrew its 
protection and they stood alone. The American pioneer was 
forced to do battle for himself against a savage foe, and also to 
combat the enemies of Great Britain. This taught him self- 
reliance, to seek his own and his fellow- colonists' counsel, and 
gradually to form a bond of union in which mutual friendship 
and reciprocal aid were the component parts. There was no 
recognized right to form alliances among themselves, but in 
consequence of the similarity of their interests, laws, and at 
times precarious situations, they frequently united to advance 
the common welfare and for defense against the Indians. 
Finally in 1754 a Colonial Congress was held in Albany, at 
which delegates from seven colonies were present. It was 
resolved "that a union of the colonies is necessary for their 
preservation, and Parliament should establish it." It was not, 
however, until the mother country began its tyrannies and 
oppressions that such a union was consummated. The bold 
stand taken by the people of Massachusetts was approved and 
applauded by the other colonial legislatures, and a national 
feeling was manifested. 

When, in 1775, the first clash of arms came in Massachusetts, 
a Continental Congress had already assembled, of which Peyton 
Randolph, of Virginia, was made the President. A year later 
the second Congress, having passed beyond petitions and bills 
of right, advanced to the supreme step of severing relations 
with the mother country, and announcing to the world a 
doctrine in governmental affairs as different to that which had 
preceded it as the new dispensation of the Nazarene had been 
in comparison with the Mosaic law. During the Middle Ages 
and even in modern times the feudal tenure had prevailed in 
Europe. There was mastership and sendee. The common 
people were serfs, the nobles held power by force, the monarchs 
of the kingdoms and empires ruled by right of descent and 
the grace of God. 

The Declaration of Independence reversed these ancient 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 61 

methods, denied the usurped powers, and proclaimed the right 
of men to govern themselves by their own consent. Kingship 
was abolished, nobility and its titles discarded, and a simple 
government of the people, through representatives chosen by 
themselves, assumed control in their stead. 

The colony of Maryland had been in sympathy with the 
opposition to the encroachment of Great Britain upon what 
the colonists considered their "inalienable rights" and had 
participated in the first Continental Congress, had answered 
the call of Massachusetts for assistance, and the riflemen of 
Allegany, with other component parts of the Maryland line 
which was afterwards to become famous as the army of 
salvation upon at least two occasions, when desperate battles 
were fought, had been sent forward to aid the colonists of 
New England. 

They were, however, a conservative people; they were a 
proprietary colony in contradistinction with those of a pro- 
vincial character or charter government. Men of great landed 
estates, always careful, were not willing to advance in rapid 
strides, and they deemed in the Maryland convention, which 
appointed its delegates to the Continental Congress in 1776, 
that the* time for separation from the mother country had not 
yet come. Therefore Samuel Chase and his colleagues sent 
by Maryland as delegates to the Continental Congress were 
restricted in their powers and instructed to vote against the 
adoption of the Declaration of Independence upon the part of 
the Maryland colonists. 

It was at this point that the eloquence, ability, patriotism, 
and aggressive nature of Charles Carroll and the con- 
servative but steadfast character of John Hanson united and 
intervened and threw the weight of the influence of their 
native colony upon the side of those who sought for separation 
from Great Britain and the establishment of the Republic. 

Charles Carroll of Carrollton was born September 8, 
1737, at Annapolis, in the colony of Maryland, which city was 



62 Acceptance of Statues of 

then not only the capital of the colony, but the center of wealth, 
power, culture, and social influence of the colonies of the South. 
His family was the richest in Maryland and potent in fashioning 
the course of events in that domain. They were of the Catholic 
faith and Jacobite in their tendencies. Charles Carroll was, 
at the age of 8 years, sent to France to be educated in the 
religious colleges of that country. At the age of 20 he departed 
from France and became a student of law at the Temple, in the 
city of London, England, where he remained for eight years, 
and at the end of that period was probably one of the most 
highly educated and cultivated men born in the colonies, for, in 
addition to the advantages that had been given him, he added a 
strong character and splendid intellect. At the age of 27, after 
an absence of twenty years from his native land, he returned to 
Maryland, and by reason of his powerful family ties, his great 
wealth, but, above all, on account of superior ability and a 
mental equipment exceeded by none of his countrymen, he 
at once took high station among them and began his career in 
the practice of the law and the management of his estates. 

In the year succeeding his return to Maryland the odious 
"stamp act " was passed. It touched every fiber in his nature 
and at once ignited into a bright flame the latent frre of his 
patriotism. He was in the front rank of those who boldly 
and courageously protested at this iniquitous legislation of 
the mother country and pledged himself to resist the execution 
of the infamous law. 

In 1774 the delegates to the Maryland assembly passed a 
resolution declaring that no more tea should be imported into 
that territory. In contravention of this resolution, in the year 
of its adoption, a brig load of this article arrived in the port of 
Annapolis. Intense excitement at once manifested itself. The 
Peggy Stewart was ready to discharge her cargo, but the noble 
woman in whose honor the vessel had been named, herself an 
ardent patriot, by an appeal to Charles Carroll prevented 
the consummation of the project. When his advice was sought 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 63 

as to what it was proper to do under the circumstances, he 
replied with promptitude and decision, "If you would allay 
the rage of the people, burn the vessel together with its 
contents." It was not many hours afterwards when a great 
concourse of people assembled upon the water front saw the 
bright light of a conflagration, which burned the vessel to the 
water's edge, and there went up a great shout of patriotic 
satisfaction. 

In 1776 Charles Carroll was appointed a commissioner, 
with Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and John Carroll, to 
induce the inhabitants of Canada to join with the thirteen 
colonies in their antagonism to British tyranny. This mission 
was unsuccessful. Influences which it would be futile to 
mention in the present caused the Canadians to refrain from 
uniting with the American revolutionists in their great struggle 
for liberty. 

On his return to Philadelphia, Carroll found that the 
Continental Congress was engaged in debate and discussion 
upon the proposition that not only should there be resistance 
to the unjust taxation of the British Parliament, but that the 
colonists had now reached a vantage ground upon which they 
should assert their independence of English rule. Carroll 
found that Chase and his colleagues, who had been chosen to 
represent Maryland, would be unable to vote for this Declara- 
tion, by reason of instructions which had been placed as a 
restriction upon them by the assembly which gave them their 
credentials. 

In a moment his mind, which was quick of perception, saw 
the danger of this opposition, for the action of the Maryland 
delegates in refusing to sign the instrument might have a fatal 
effect upon its intent and frustrate its purpose. The national 
sentiment had reached its height. The moment for decisive 
action had arrived. In order to make the action of the Con- 
gress effective it must be unanimous, and therefore Carroll, 
with a celerity in those days unprecedented, journeyed to 



64 Acceptance of Statues of 

Annapolis. In haste he proceeded to the convention, and 
with resolute demeanor, while it was yet in session, entered 
the chamber, procured recognition, and at once began the 
deliver}' of an address which seems an inspiration; so forceful 
in its nature was it that he procured a repeal of the instruc- 
tions, and on that day, the 28th of June, prevailed upon the 
convention to send new instructions to the delegates at Phila- 
delphia, abrogating those formerly issued and directing them 
to vote for the Declaration. 

In the first days of July he was appointed a Delegate to 
Congress, and notwithstanding his strenuous effort to reach 
Philadelphia in time for the passage of the Declaration, he was 
too late to cast his vote in its favor; but when the Delegates 
were called upon to sign their names to the immortal document 
John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress, 
asked him if he would sign it. "Most willingly, ' ' rang out 
the clear voice of Carroll, and he stepped forward and affixed 
his name; but as he did so some one suggested that it was an 
act for which possibly His Majesty the King of England might 
at some future time urgently require his presence, and that 
there were other Carrolls in Maryland. Therefore he again 
took the pen and added, "of Carrollton." "That the British 
King might know where to find him to answer for his treason." 
Thus we find that while Charles Carroll was not of the 
committee which drew that great state paper, while he could 
not claim authorship or inspiration as did Jefferson and Frank- 
lin, yet upon his action depended its acceptance and success. 

During the great struggle which followed, which, indeed, 
had already begun, until its final consummation, Charles 
Carroll labored without ceasing. The friend and confiden- 
tial adviser of Washington, serving in many capacities; in 
Congress, in the State legislature, ever faithful and loyal, 
ready and willing to give freely of his services and his means, 
that the Declaration for which he had pledged ' ' his life, his 
fortune, and his sacred honor" should triumph. 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 65 

The Declaration of Independence is, in my humble opinion, 
the most important act of the American people. Its adoption 
was hailed with patriotic exultation by the colonists. Amid 
the peals of old Liberty Bell from the tower of the hall in 
which Congress deliberated freedom was proclaimed. It was 
the beginning of a new era in government. It not only gave 
notice to the world that the American colonies were, and of 
right ought to be, free and independent States, but it went 
further and beyond that. It declared that all men were born 
free and equal, and endowed with certain inalienable rights, 
among which should be mentioned "life, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of happiness." Aye, it went beyond that, and it laid 
down resolutely and firmly the doctrine that all just govern- 
ment must derive its authority from the governed. The 
world was astonished; Britain was stunned by the blow; 
Metternich, the statesman of the old school, who was guiding 
the fortunes and diplomacy of continental Europe, laughed 
and said that "a government so founded must be ephemeral 
in its nature and would soon pass away \>y reason of internal 
dissensions." But his prophecy was vain; his judgment was 
clouded; for upon that Declaration was founded a new nation, 
conceived and born in liberty, fraternity, and equality, and it 
was the intention of the fathers, the framers, the patriots; 
it was the intention of Charles Carroix and John Hanson, 
as evidenced in many of their utterances, that America should 
not only have freedom for herself, but should inculcate liberty 
and advance, protect, and defend freedom for all the nations 
and peoples of the earth. 

The Declaration of Independence is the grandest exposition 
of the noble heritage which of right belongs to a patriotic, 
liberty-loving people that has ever been penned, spoken, pro- 
claimed, or sung by man. It is splendid in conception, mag- 
nificent in its dignified statement, majestic in its ever-increasing 
power, as it names, condemns, lifts up to scorn the encroach- 
ments, oppressions, and tyrannies of the English Government, 
S. Doc. 13 5 



66 Acceptance of Statues of 

and becomes sublime as it hurls its maledictions upon wrong, 
breaks the bonds that bound the colonists, and proclaims 
liberty to the world. It is not organic law, it has not the force 
of the Constitution in courts of law, but, sir, in the da)' the 
Declaration of Independence is not the supreme law in the 
hearts and minds of the American people, the Constitution 
will be no longer respected and the national life will be endan- 
gered. Therefore it should stand first, sacred, inviolate. 

During the same time that the Continental Congress was 
employed in fashioning and adopting the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence there was also appointed a committee to formulate a 
plan of government for the union of the thirteen colonies into a 
league for the mutual protection and defense, that they might 
in union* wage war upon Britain and achieve a common inde- 
pendence. These articles do not evidence the same high spirit 
that was manifested in the Declaration. Rival interests, sec- 
tional differences, various contentions which had been forgotten 
in^the lofty and noble patriotic enthusiasm of the Declaration 
were plainly seen in the twenty articles which were reported to 
the convention. After the adoption of the Declaration a long 
struggle took place upon these Articles of Confederation. They 
were finally adopted by the convention on the 15th day of 
November, 1777. 

The Declaration had dealt with the people of the United 
States. The Articles of Confederation dealt with sovereign 
Commonwealths, and here we find the beginning of the two 
ideas which fought for supremacy from the first hour of our 
appearance in the arena of nations until the end of the great 
civil war — the one for Federal supremacy, the other for State 
sovereignty. 

These Articles of Confederation were ratified in July, 1778, 
by delegates from all the States in the Union save three. They 
were subsequently signed by New Jersey on November 25, 1778, 
by Delaware February 22, 1779, and Maryland March 1, 1781. 
It will be seen that the State of Maryland was the last to give 



Charles Carrol/ and John Hanson. 67 

adhesion to the plan of the Confederacy. The reason for her 
long and strenuous opposition was that John Hanson and 
Daniel Carroll, of her Delegates in Congress, assumed a position 
upon the question of the Western domain which was at length 
successful and which time has demonstrated to have been 
supremely wise. 

Beyond the confines of the original States lay the great 
' ' Northwest Territory. ' ' Several of the Commonwealths 
claimed extravagant area because of the ill, or rather unde- 
fined, boundary. Maryland refused to ratify unless these 
claims were surrendered, for she contended that the vast tracts 
of land rescued from the common enemy by mutual effort 
should be common property and inure to the benefit of the 
National Government. This position was maintained for five 
years. Hanson and Carroll labored assiduously to remove 
the impediments existing, and at length succeeded in arousing 
the other States to a sense of the importance of the question 
and effected a compromise. Thereupon they were empowered 
to sign the ratification for Maryland. 

After these years of struggle we find Maryland, though the 
last of the States to accede to the proposition, gave her assent 
to the ratification of the Articles of Confederation graciously 
and gladly on March 1, 1781, and made plain the way for the 
beginning of government under the Confederacy. The Revo- 
lutionary or Provisional Congress passed away. In its stead 
the new Congress, under the government of the Confederacy, 
was convened on March 2, 1781, under the title of "United 
States of America. ' ' 

Under this plan of government there is what may appear to 
us now a strange condition. There is absent every particle of 
executive power in this Confederacy; the Congress is the legis- 
lative power, and in truth the only governing power recognized 
in the Republic. The reason for this is to the student of 
history very plain. The patriots of the Revolution had so 
long suffered from executive power as imposed by Parliament 



68 Acceptance of Statues of 

and practiced by royal governors that they detested and 
despised it, and would have none of it in the General Govern- 
ment. The States themselves had their governors and legis- 
lative bodies, but the Federal Government was devoid of 
executive power, except so far as the Federal Legislature by 
its own acts assumed them under the articles and executed 
them through its President. 

Upon the assembling of Congress, under the new Articles of 
Confederation, on the 2d of March, 1781, John Hanson was 
present as a Delegate from Maryland. He was born in Charles 
County, southern Maryland, in the year 17 15, and was there- 
fore at this period fast approaching the time which is allotted 
to men by the patriarch — three score and ten — yet he 1 was as 
active as ever in the great struggle for independence. Years 
had not diminished his ardor nor lessened his devotion to the 
cause. He was descended from a family who originally dwelt 
upon the Eastern Shore of the State, in the good old county of 
Kent. His was one of the most influential families in the 
province. His personality stands in direct contrast with that 
of Charles Carroll. His education was obtained in the 
land of his nativity, not in foreign countries. His occupation 
was that of a Maryland landowner, a tiller of the soil, dwelling 
amidst his large plantation; a Protestant in faith, and, natur- 
ally, an adherent of the house of Hanover. 

In early manhood he began, by reason of his position, to take 
great interest in the affairs of the colony. He represented 
Charles County in the lower house of the assembly in numerous 
sessions, and in the exciting times when the oppressions of 
Great Britain upon the colonies augmented from year to year 
he participated with thoughtful conservatism, which gradually 
developed — not by passion, but by reason and principle — into a 
determined opposition to the mother country. His fame spread 
throughout the province, and he ranked high among the 
accepted leaders of the movement for resistance. He was 
among the strongest and stanchest advocates of the ' ' Maryland 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 69 

associations," and was among the first to sign the agreement 
obligating himself, " by the sacred ties of honor and reputation, 
not to import nor purchase any article thus taxed or which 
should thereafter be taxed by Parliament for the purpose of 
revenue," and he was the first in Charles County to openly 
compel the reshipment of goods sought to be imported. 

In 1773 the march to the westward had already begun, and 
Frederick County, which has proven to be one of the richest 
agricultural districts in the United States, began to attract 
prominent settlers. John Hanson was in the vanguard of the 
march of the new pioneers, and settled in Frederick County in 
1773. Already well known as a leader in the State, his activity 
was transferred from Charles to Frederick County. In 1774 he 
was appointed a Delegate to the General Congress at Annapolis 
and also elected a member of the committee of observation for 
the colon}-. He was active in organizing the Maryland Line, 
and contributed freely from his means, not only to his own 
State government, but it is recorded of him at this time that he 
sent ^200 sterling for the relief of the poor of Boston, then 
suffering by reason of British invasion. Thenceforward we 
may trace his history, ever in the forefront, serving in various 
capacities upon committees and in assemblies. 

In 1775 the Maryland convention issued its declaration of 
independence, known as the "Association of freemen of Mary- 
land." This meant the downfall of the proprietary govern- 
ment and the assumption of power by the provisional 
government of the people themselves. Matthew Tilghman 
was the president of this convention, and John Hanson one 
of its most distinguished and forceful members. During his 
chairmanship of committee of observation in Maryland, which 
practically governed the colony, the attempt of Lord Dun more 
and his fellow-conspirators to destroy Maryland, Virginia, and 
Pennsylvania by fire and sword was discovered and frustrated. 
When Maryland had ceased to be a province and became a 
State under its own constitution, John Hanson was again 



yo Accepta?ice of Statues of 

a member of the general assembly, and in 1779 was elected a 
Delegate to the Continental Congress. In November, 1780, 
he was reelected to the general assembly of Maryland, but 
declined the honor and resigned his office, he being at the 
same time a member of the Continental Congress from his 
State. 

Here it may be remarked that when he resigned his office he 
said to the people of Frederick County that the best man they 
could send in his place was Thomas Johnson, the famous first 
governor of Maryland when she was free. 

On November 28, 1781, John Hanson was reelected to 

Congress for his third term, and with Daniel Carroll subscribed 

to the ratification of the Articles of Confederation for his 

State. (^ 

,[ The organization of the new Congress began, and John 

' A 

Hanson, of Maryland, was chosen as President, and thus 
became ' ' President of the United States in Congress assem- 
bled," occupying that exalted position until 1782, during the 
eventful period when the American armies, in conjunction with 
their French allies, finally triumphed, when beneath the rays 
of an October sun George Washington received the sword of 
his captive, Cornwallis., The great labor accomplished, inde- 
pendence won, and the nation in its formative period, with 
every indication of advancement and success, John Hanson, 
now a man old in years as well as high in honors, retired from 
public life, seeking seclusion and rest.' 

He was the first ' ' President of the United States in Con- 
gress assembled," and his hand guided the fortunes of the 
new nation in the year which brought the final success of 
American arms, after a long period of vicissitude and change- 
ful fortune. He was not a man of selfish ambition, but 
became active in the affairs of his native colony by reason 
of his love of country and steadfast purpose to stand by and 
for the right. That he loved home better than the arena of 
political life is evidenced by his correspondence with his 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 71 

nearest and dearest of kin. As we read some of these epistles 
written to his wife and to his son-in-law, Dr. Philip Thomas, 
of Frederick, we are impressed with the fact that only a high 
sense of duty kept him for five and twenty years constantly 
engaged in public service, and allowed him to retire only 
when his fondest hopes had been realized in the consum- 
mation of freedom and self-government for his native land. 
I trust I may be pardoned for presenting to public view an 
extract from a letter which was evidently intended for his 
family, dated at Philadelphia, September 4, 1782. He wrote 
as follows: 

As to my serving as a delegate in our assembly next year, I hope my 
friends will excuse me. I think the public can have no further claim to 
my services. I have performed my term of duty and they must give me a 
discharge. Retirement to people of my age must be most desirable, and I 
hope I shall enjoy it in the future without being censured for withdrawing 
from the public service. 

But the effect of the arduous labors of a lifetime of constant 
effort in the great cause soon called him to a more lasting rest 
than that afforded by the seclusion of his estate, for on the 2 2d 
day of November, 1783, he passed out of this life into the 
future, where it is said, "just men are made perfect." 

Charles Carroll lived long beyond John Hanson. To 
him was vouchsafed a life filled with honors even in his declin- 
ing years. The services which he rendered to his State and to 
the 'Union can not be too highly appreciated. The Articles 
of Confederation had been well denominated "a rope of sand," 
and the formation of a strong, lasting Union was necessary as 
between the sovereign States. Common oppression and mutual 
disasters had united them in a desperate endeavor to obtain 
freedom. 

At the conclusion of the struggle the army was disbanded, 
Washington resigned his commission and lived quietly at Mount 
Vernon; but notwithstanding his private station, he stood first 
in the hearts of his countrymen, and he was worth} 7 of their 
high esteem. His patient endurance more than any other 



72 Acceptance of Statues of 

quality had brought final success to the American arms. It 
was reserved for him to do as great a service for his country in 
civil life as he had rendered upon the field. He it was who 
appealed to his countrymen to form a more lasting Union by 
the adoption of a Constitution creating a Federal Government. 
His influence was necessary, he alone had the power of leading 
the various and conflicting interests of the colonies to this con- 
clusion. Among the very first of the leaders in the various 
States with whom he had consultation was Charles Carroll, 
and through Charles Carroll Maryland was induced to 
favor a convention and assist in the formation of a Constitution 
and finally aid in its adoption. Thus he rendered to the State 
and to the Union service of supreme value. He served in the 
Senate of the United States under the new Constitution, for 
the adoption of which he labored valiantly and faithfully. 
Then in the senate of his State for a decade, and after that 
came retirement from public life, receiving in private station 
from his fellow-citizens the honors which were due to him 
as the first and greatest citizen of his State. The end of 
his glorious life came on the 14th of November, 1832, he 
having reached an age almost unprecedented among the men 
of his time — almost 96 years. He was the last survivor of 
the signers of the Declaration of Independence. 

Such was the character, such were the sendees of the two 
Marylanders whom our statues typify as the best product of 
the manhood of our soil. They have passed away, but they 
shall be ever remembered, and their fame will extend into the 
distant future. Their influence has not ceased. True it is, the 
principles which they evolved and for which they struggled 
seem at present to be obscured by an eclipse. If it be so, 
would it not be well upon this occasion to call a halt in the 
fateful march, would it not be well to look backward, and, if 
necessary, retrace our steps until we may stand again in that 
altitude where our vision will become bright and clear, where 
the flash light of an indiscreet ambition, of a desire for "world 



Charles Carroll and John Ha?iso?i. 73 

power," for territorial expansion and colonial aggrandizement 
shall forever pass away, and in its stead we shall see again 
that light which led us for a century and a quarter in hon- 
orable history and glorious achievement as a nation? We 
shall march to the music of the song of the great Declaration 
for which Charles Carroll and John Hanson lived and 
labored throughout many years, and realize, as did they, that 
our strength as a nation depends upon the exemplification of 
the grandest doctrine ever promulgated to men — that they 
shall be free and govern themselves, under God, according to 
their own consent and pleasure. [Applause in the galleries.] 

Mr. Hoar. Mr. President, I ask that an order be made that 
the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Daniel] be permitted to put 
into the Record and into the account of the proceedings 
of this day, when published otherwise, the remarks he had 
intended to make. 

The President pro tempore. The Senator from Massachu- 
setts asks unanimous consent that the Senator from Virginia 
[Mr. Daniel] may be permitted to publish in the Record 
and make part of the record of this day's proceedings the 
speech which he had prepared and had intended to have 
made, but which he has been prevented from doing by sick- 
ness. Is there objection to the request? The Chair hears 
none, and that order is made. 

Mr. Wellington. Mr. President, I ask that the concurrent 
resolution offered by my colleague be adopted. 

The President pro tempore. The question is on the adop- 
tion of the concurrent resolution offered by the Senator from 
Maryland [Mr. McComas]. 

The concurrent resolution was unaniously agreed to. 

Mr. Wellington. I now move that the Senate adjourn. 

The motion was agreed to; and (at 5 o'clock and 17 minutes 
p. m.) the Senate adjourned until Monday, February 2, 1903, 
at 12 o'clock meridian. 



ACCEPTANCE OF STATUES OF CHARLES 
CARROLL AND IOHN HANSON. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE. 



DECEMBER 17, 1902. 

The Speaker. Without objection, the Chair will lay before 
the House a communication from the governor of the State of 
Maryland, which the Clerk will read. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Executive Department, 
Annapolis, Md., December 75, 1902. 
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, 

Washington , D. C. 
Gentlemen: I have the honor to inform you that in acceptance of the 
invitation contained in section 1814 of the Revised Statutes of the United 
States, the general assembly of Maryland, by chapter 311 of the Acts of 
1898, made an appropriation to procure statues of Charles Carroll of 
Carrollton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and 
John Hanson, President of the Continental Congress of 1781 and 1782, 
to be placed in Statuary Hall, in the Capitol, at Washington, D. C. 

By authority of the act of the general assembly of Maryland, the gover- 
nor appointed John Uee Carroll, Douglas H. Thomas, Thomas J. Shryock, 
Fabian Franklin, and Richard K. Cross to constitute a commission to 
procure and have the statues erected. 

I am informed by the commissioners that the statues were made by Mr. 
Richard E. Brooks, of Boston; that they are completed and have been 
placed in position, and are now ready to be presented to Congress. 

As governor of the State of Maryland, therefore, I have the honor to 
present to the Government of the United States the statues of the distin- 
guished statesmen named. 

Very respectfully, John Walter Smith, 

Governor of Maryland. 
Mr. Pearre. Mr. Speaker, in connection with the commu- 
nication just read, I ask unanimous consent for the present 
consideration of the resolution which I ask the Clerk to read. 
The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, That the exercises appropriate to the reception and accept- 
ance from the State of Maryland of the statues of Charles Carroll of 

75 



76 Acceptance of Statues of 

Carrollton and John Hanson, erected in Statuary Hall in the Capitol, 
be made the special order for Saturday, January 31, 1903, at 3 o'clock p. m. 

There being no objection, the resolution was considered and 
adopted. 

On motion of Mr. Pearre, a resolution to reconsider the vote 
by which the resolution was adopted was laid on the table. 

JANUARY 29, 1903. 
STATUES OF CHARLES CARROLL AND JOHN HANSON. 

Mr. Pearre. I ask unanimous consent for the present con- 
sideration of the resolution which I send to the Clerk. 
The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved by the House of Representatives, That the members of the 
Maryland statuary commission be admitted to the floor of the House of 
Representatives, in seats to be provided for them, during the ceremonies 
incident to the acceptance of the statues of Charles Carroll of Car- 
rollton and John Hanson, presented by the State of Maryland to the 
Government of the United States, on Saturday, January 31, at 3 p.m.; and 

Resolved further, That the southeast and southwest ladies' galleries be 
reserved for the relatives of the said Charles Carroll of Carrollton 
and John Hanson and for such citizens of Maryland as may attend these 
ceremonies. 

There being no objection, the resolution was considered, and 
agreed to. 

The Speaker. This resolution having been adopted, the 
Doorkeeper will be governed by this action of the House. 

JANUARY 31, 1903. 
STATUES OF CHARLES CARROLL AND JOHN HANSON. 

The Speaker pro tempore. The House is in session pur- 
suant to the special order of the House, which the Clerk will 
read. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

On motion of Mr. Pearre, by unanimous consent, 

Resolved, That the exercises appropriate to the reception and accept- 
ance from the State of Maryland of the statues of Charles Carroll 
of Carrollton and John Hanson, erected in the Statuary Hall, in the 
Capitol, be made the special order for Saturday, January 3r, 1903, at 3 
o'clock p. m.— Order made in the House Wednesday, December 17, 1902. 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 



11 



Mr. Pearre. Mr. Speaker, I ask that the letter of the gov- 
ernor of Maryland, which has been read heretofore in this 
House and laid upon the table, be taken from the table and 
read again. 

The Speaker pro tempore. Without objection the Clerk 
will report the letter. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Executive Department, 
Annapolis, J/d., December 15, igo2. 
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, 

Washington, D. C. 
GenTiEmen: I have the honor to inform you that in acceptance of the 
invitation contained in section 1814 of the Revised Statutes of the United 
States, the general assembly of Maryland, by chapter 311 of the Acts of 
1898, made an appropriation to procure statues of Charles Carroll of 
Carrollton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and 
John Hanson, president of the Continental Congress of 1781 and 1782, 
to be placed in Statuary Hall, in the Capitol, at Washington, D. C. 

By authority of the act of the general assembly of Maryland, the 
governor appointed John Lee Carroll, Douglas H. Thomas, Thomas J. 
Shryock, Fabian Franklin, and Richard K. Cross to constitute a com- 
mission to procure and have the statues erected. 

I am informed by the commissioners that the statues were made by Mr. 
Richard E. Brooks, of Boston; that they are completed and have been 
placed in position, and are now ready to be presented to Congress. 

As governor of the State of Maryland, therefore, I have the honor to 
present to the Government of the United States the statues of the dis- 
tinguished statesmen named. 

Very respectfully, John Walter Smith, 

Governor of Ma ryla nd. 

Mr. Pearre. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following resolu- 
tion, which I will send to the desk and ask to have read. 
The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved by the House of Representatives {the Senate concur) ing), That 
the thanks of Congress be presented to the State of Maryland for provid- 
ing the bronze statues of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and John 
Hanson, citizens of Maryland, illustrious for their historic renown and 
distinguished civic services. 

Resolved, That the statues be accepted and placed in the National 
Statuary Hall in the Capitol, and that a copy of these resolutions, duly 
authenticated, be transmitted to the governor of the State of Maryland. 



78 Acceptance of Statues of 



Address of Mr. Pearre, of Maryland. 

Mr. Speaker: On the 2d day of July, 1864, the President 
approved an act of Congress inviting each of the States to 
present statues, not more than two in number, of deceased 
persons who had rendered such military or civic service as 
entitled them to commemoration as national figures in Statuary 
Hall in the National Capitol. 

Maryland, hesitating lovingly among the multitude of her 
distinguished sons, Thomas Johnson, William Pinkney, Wil- 
liam Small wood, John Eager Howard, Samuel Chase, Otho 
Holland Williams, Luther Martin, Roger B. Taney, Reverdy 
Johnson, Henry Winter Davis, Francis Scott Key, and a score 
of others, has at last made her selection and has presented the 
two handsome bronze statues which have been added to the 
brilliant galaxy of statesmen and soldiers which surround 
the nation's Hall of Fame. 

By an act of the general assembly of Maryland, approved in 
1898, an appropriation was made and a commission appointed, 
consisting of Ex-Governor John Dee Carroll, Douglas H. 
Thomas, Thomas J. Shryock, Dr. Fabian Franklin, and 
Richard K. Cross, who were instructed to have designed and 
cast statues of Charles Carrole of Carrollton, one of the 
signers of the Declaration of Independence', and John Han- 
son, President of the United States in Congress assembled 
from 1 78 1 to 1782. 

The marked ability and artistic taste with which that com- 
mission has discharged its duty are attested by the excellence 
of these two statues, executed in bronze by Mr. Richard E. 
Brooks, of Boston, Mass. 

To accept this gift of the old Commonwealth of Maryland 
to the Government and people of the United States, are we 
gathered here to-day under authority of a resolution of the 
House of Representatives, adopted on the 17th day of January, 
1903. 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 79 

The pleasant duty devolves upon me to speak to the exalted 
virtues of Charles Carroll of Carrollton' To form an 
adequate estimate of the character of a man who has gone 
before us, Mr. Speaker, we must try to view him in the light 
of his time and to measure him by the standard then existing. 
To secure the true likeness, we must paint the picture on the 
background of his environment while living, with the side 
lights and full lights of his surroundings, inquire how far he 
followed or disregarded precedents, and learn the extent to 
which his course, in crises, conformed to or violated the rules 
and tendencies of his education and station. 

When America was discovered, it was said that the new 
land concealed a fountain whose perpetual waters had power 
to reanimate age and restore the strength of youth. The 
tradition was true, but the youth to be renewed was the 
youth of society; the life to bloom afresh was the life of the 
race; and this was to be accomplished by the revolution 
of the colonies, which was the consummation of freedom's 
struggle for nearly two centuries. The forces working 
toward it had their origin in the, great mental revival of the 
Reformation in the sixteenth century. Man, after groping 
through the darkness of feudalism, had at last faintly seen 
the light. Free inquiry, freedom of thought in spiritual 
affairs, was soon followed by the desire for freedom of 
thought and action in the temporal order. The dignity of 
man's individuality had been clouded by his subserviency to 
superior power. In the old civilization of Europe, authority 
and power moved from the superior to the inferior. The 
government esteemed itself invested by divine right with 
the power to furnish protection and demand submission. 

But a new principle had taken possession of the heart of 
man. The right to apply the powers of his mind to any ques- 
tion, and to assert his individual judgment began to creep upon 
his intelligence. 

Successive ages of struggle, successive lives, and deaths of 
heroes in the world of thought, had brought man to the idea 



80 Acceptance of Statues of 

of the freedom of the individual, and it was then but the work 
of time to carry Trim to the comprehension of the power that lies 
in the collective reason of the whole — to teach him to substitute 
the natural equality of man for the hereditary privilege of 
monarchs, to replace the irresponsible authority of a sovereign 
with a dependent government emanating from the harmonized 
opinions of equal individuals. 

The spark of liberty that first glimmered in the breasts of 
the Anglos and Saxons in the forests of Germany kept smol- 
dering through the centuries, now fanned into a flame by the 
tyranny of kings, until the Magna Charta is secured, again but 
a dying ember under the Tudors; now flashing fitfully in the 
petition and declaration of rights, and again lost sight of in 
foreign wars, often faint, but never dead; often hidden, but 
always glowing in the Anglo-Saxon breast until it burst into a 
blaze of beauteous glory in the Declaration of Independence, 
and its full effulgence rested on a free and united land. 

The seventeenth century found Charles the First on the 
throne of England; headstrong but vacillating, arbitrary 
but weak; tyrannical and false, this monarch was little fitted 
to control the English people at a time when the leaven of 
liberty was working in the souls of his subjects. The divine 
right of kings was the political doctrine of the Stuarts; the 
divine right of the people was the political truth of the cen- 
tury. < 

Prerogative took the field in its stubborn contest with the 
popular will and never left it until the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence rang the death knell as well to the tyranny of kings 
as the tyranny of Parliaments. 

In 1760 George the Third ascended the throne of England, 
and the tyranny of the seventeenth century, which was sup- 
posed to have died with Charles the First and the deposition of 
James the Second, was revived. The hand on the clock of 
time is turned back; civilization halts in its progress. His 
whole policy was bent upon the subjugation of the colonies to 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 81 

raise revenue, as Charles the First had done. He undertook 
to tax the colonies without their consent, and the stamp act 
was passed through Parliament with scarcely a division. 

Then began the great struggle for representative govern- 
ment against the arbitrary power of one man. 

Two great waves broke in fur}- over Great Britain and her 
colonies in America. The one ancient, the power of monarchy, 
rolling with all the accumulated strength of centuries; the 
other modern, the united will of the people, agitated by 
the tumultuous swellings of a popular spirit, increased by the 
coming flood of a newer and more modern enlightenment, 
rolled on in its overwhelming and resistless course. 

The nobility of England had forgotten the revolution of 
1688 and the lessons it had taught. The King had forgotten 
the lesson of the death of Charles the First, and the power to 
tax the colonies internally without their consent in the face 
of the Magna Charta, the declaration of rights, the charters 
of the colonies, and the determined will of the people was 
not only asserted as a financial necessity, but maintained as 
a political right. 

This was the England to which Charles Carroll of 
Carrollton went in 1757, when he entered the Temple at 
London to study law at the age of 20, after having spent the 
prior period of his life from S years of age at St. Omers, 
Rheims, and Paris, in France, the home of absolute monarchy. 

Such was the situation of the province of Maryland and its 
relation to the mother country when, in 1764, a refined and 
cultured aristocrat, the pampered son of a father who was 
the protege of Csecilius Calvert,, and bound to the Stuarts by 
ever} r tie of social contact and royal beneficence, he landed at 
Annapolis 011 the 14th of February, at the age of 27, a dis- 
franchised citizen by reason of his faith. Charles Carroll 
of Carrollton was of almost royal ancestry, being descended 
from the princely family of the Carrolls of Ely O' Carroll, 
Kings County, Ireland. 
S. Doc. 13 6 



82 Acceptance of Statues of 

He was an aristocrat by birth, breeding, education, and 
association. His every hereditary connection and tendency 
was monarchical. He did not spring from the free gentry of 
Great Britain, nor from the masses who, during the century 
of his birth, were struggling for the recognition of the inherent 
rights of free manhood, but from the ruling classes, who, 
attached to the absolute monarchy of their time, were fighting 
to delay, aye, to prevent, this recognition. His paternal 
grandfather, Charles Carroll, after his admission to the bar, 
became the secretary of Lord Powis, one of the ministers of 
James the Second, who bespoke for him the favor of Caeeilius 
Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, with whose commission of 
attorney-general of the province he came to Maryland in 
1688. 

By Lord Baltimore he was endowed with large landed 
estates, which made him and his descendants the wealthiest 
residents of the province, and he was ever attached to the 
service of the proprietary, the grant of the King. 

His father, Charles Carroll the second, if I may so call him, 
was also connected with the proprietary by every tie, and had 
that pride of ancestry characteristic of caste and class, inva- 
riably binding such men to the existing order and opposing 
them to changes in government. 

In 1 761 we find him writing to his son, Charles Carroll 
of Carrollton, then a student abroad, to trace back his Irish 
ancestry to the year 1500, in these words: 

I find by history as well as by genealogy that the country of Ely 
O'Carroll and Dirguill, which comprehended most of King's and Queen's 
counties, were the territories of the O'Carrolls, and that they were princes 
thereof You may, as things are how circumstanced, and considering the 
low estate to which all the branches of our family are reduced by the 
struggles the ancient Irish maintained for the support of their religion, 
rights, and properties, and which received their finishing stroke at the 
Revolution, think my inquiry an idle one, but I do not think so. If I am 
not right, the folly may be excused by its being a general one, and I hope 
for your own and my sake you will gratify me by making as careful an 
inquiry as possible and giving me what light you can on the subject. As 
soon as there is peace I will send you the genealogy, in Irish and English, 
and I desire you will get our family, in particular, traced to its origin. 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 83 

Thus descended, thus reared, thus associated, every factor of 
his environment should have molded the youthful mind of 
Charles Carroll of Carrollton in the rut of the past and 
ordained him as a defender of the tyranny of kings against the 
rights of the people. 

Notwithstanding a previous effort of his father to have him 
sell his estates in Maryland and expatriate himself, he returned 
to America in 1765 a finished scholar and an accomplished 
gentleman and took possession of his large estates in Maryland, 
part of which was called." Carrollton," by which he afterwards 
distinguished himself from his relative, Charles Carroll, bar- 
rister, of Annapolis. With wealth to indulge every whim, 
with refined literary taste and ability to engage his thought, 
with friends to amuse him, and barred from public life and 
politics by his religion, there was nothing to draw him into 
the vortex of the controversy over human rights by which he 
soon found himself surrounded save the inherent sense of 
justice and of right which shaped his whole life. The profits 
of his profession offered no temptation; the emoluments of 
office could not allure the richest man in the province. He 
could hope to gain no concessions from the Provincial Govern- 
ment in espousing its cause; no place of prominence and power 
at the hands of the people for defending their rights, for both 
were Protestant. He was a Catholic, disqualified by reason of 
his faith from voting or holding office in the ' ' Land of the 
Sanctuary." 

The loss of his fixed and substantial wealth stood as a 
constant warning to him not to be active in any of the many 
controversies arising in this new country and age, and pointed 
to indifference and neutrality as the course which an enlight- 
ened selfishness should pursue. 

Association, friendship, love of home and neighbor, did not 
combine to turn him to the cause of his countrymen, for he had 
spent his whole life from childhood to mature manhood in the 
schools of absolutism in France, and had formed his friendships 



84 Acceptance of Statues of 

among those classes in both England and France which were 
not only wedded to the forms and practices of tyranny, but were 
in many instances a part of the government which oppressed. 

No man in all the colonics was more encircled by condi- 
tions that would have predisposed him to the royal cause, or 
at least to diplomatic inactivity, than Charles Carroll of 
Carrolltou. 

Reason, experience, and indeed posterity would have con- 
doned such a course, and nothing but an enlightened mind, a 
loyal and a brave heart, could have so completely divorced him 
from all the precedents of his life. The ordinary man is 
largely the creature of circumstances. He usually follows the 
crowd. 

To accept the conditions in which a man finds himself, to 
agree with his neighbor, make no great draft on either moral 
or physical courage. To break the bond of one's surround- 
ings, to sever old friendships and associations, to disagree 
with one's neighbor, aye, to fight and kill him, to risk .life, 
property, all, in crises which involve all, demands that lofty 
moral courage, that intelligent self-containment, that complete 
unselfishness, that has in all ages distinguished the great man 
from the small. 

What did this young Irishman find when in 1764, at 27 year* 
of age, he set foot upon the soil of Maryland and took posses- 
sion of his large estate? He found a fair' land, dedicated to 
religious freedom, welcoming him as a citizen, but for his faith 
depriving him of a citizen's clearest rights; a province whose 
royal charter guaranteed its citizens all the ancient rights of 
Englishmen and protected them, in terms, from taxation by 
any but their own representative; a colony .sacred to man's 
most modern rights trembling with the prospect of the stamp 
act, finally imposed on the 22d day of March, 1765. 

He found the proprietary government, the government of 
which his fathers had been a part, the government of the bene- 
factors of his family, bent upon imposing taxes upon the people 
in the shape of fees of public officers and tithes to the Episcopal 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 85 

clergy by proclamation of the governor without the consent of 
the people through their representatives. The stamp act would 
have cost him but little, the fees to public officers and tithes 
to the clergy would not have embarrassed him seriously in his 
great wealth. He could have paid them, but in each of these 
controversies he saw a principle embodied, the sacred principle 
that the people alone have the right to tax themselves. He 
saw that this question must be settled then, there, for him, for 
his fellow-citizens, for humanity, for posterity. 

No hesitation marked his course. Throwing aside every 
association of his early life, risking his vast property, man- 
fully overcoming every predilection arising from his ancestry, 
birth, and education, he cast his lot with the people. No 
public act or utterance marks his attitude toward this historic 
piece of tyranny, for he could not vote or hold office; but that 
his heart was the patriot's heart appears in a letter to his 
friend Edmund Jennings, of London, in which he says: 

Should the stamp act be enforced by tyrannical soldiery, our property, 
our liberty, our very existence is at an end. And you may be persuaded 
that nothing but an armed force can execute this worst of laws. Can 
England, surrounded with powerful enemies, distracted with intestine 
factions, encumbered and almost staggering under the immense load of 
debt, little short of ^"150,000,000, send out such a powerful army to 
deprive their fellow-subjects of their rights and liberties? 

If ministerial influence and parliamentary corruption should not blush 
at such a detestable sheme; if Parliament, blind to their own interest and 
forgetting that they are the guardians of sacred liberty and of our happy 
constitution, should have the impudence to avow this open infraction of 
both, will England, her commerce annihilated by the oppression of Amer- 
ica, be able to maintain these troops? Reflect on the immense ocean that 
divides this fruitful country from the island whose power, as its territory 
is circumscribed, has already arrived at its zenith, while the power of this 
continent is growing daily and in time will be as unbounded as our 
dominions are extensive. The rapid increase in manufactures surpasses 
the expectation of the most sanguine American. Even the arts and 
sciences commence to flourish, and in these, as in arms, the day, I hope, 
will come when America will be superior to all the world. 

Prophetic hope, uttered at the dawn of the nation's darkest 
day, resplendently realized at the dawn of a new century, on a 
day when we commemorate the virtues of the patriot whom it 
inspired! 



86 Acceptance of Statues of 

In his opposition to the next step of government, to assume 
the rights of the people Charles Carroll left his retirement 
and stepped into public gaze as the avowed champion of the 
people. Public officers in Maryland had always been paid by 
fees fixed by the assembly. The law fixing those fees and 
the tithes which the Episcopal clergy of the Established Church 
were allowed to collect had expired by its own limitation. 
The house of burgesses and the council failed to agree on 
a new law, and Governor Eden prorogued the assembly and 
by executive proclamation fixed the fees and tithes himself. 

This action of the governor aroused more indignation in the 
province, if possible, than the stamp act, which was soon 
repealed. In his opposition to this proclamation he perhaps 
shone brightest in all his long advocacy of the people's rights 
against the aggressions of arbitrary power. 

In a series of published letters, replete with erudition, in 
classic style and poignant satire, Charles Carroll again 
espoused the people's cause, and, on the broad ground that 
these fees and tithes were nothing short of taxes on the people, 
and as such could only be imposed upon them by their consent, 
through their duly elected representatives, he arraigned the 
governor and his secretary of state, the gifted Daniel Dulaney, 
in dialogues between the First and Second Citizen, and which 
were the philippics of the age. 

During this written debate he was taunted as "Jesuit," 
"anti-Christ," a "man without a country;" and yet his 
devotion to the people's* cause rose supreme over ever}' insult, 
over all injustice, and inspired him with an eloquence of diction 
and a forcefulness of statement which put to rout the great 
Daniel Dulaney, the peer of any lawyer of his time in England 
or America. 

The broad liberality of his mind and soul, his devotion to 

civil and religious freedom, appear in this controversy, when, 

in referring to the English Revolution, he says: 

That the national religion was in danger under James the Second from 
his bigotry and despotic temper, the dispensing power assumed by him 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 87 

and every other part of his conduct clearly evince. The nation had a 
right to resist and so secure its civil and religious liberties. I am as 
averse to having a religion crammed down people's throats as a proc- 
lamation. 

This was the reply of a Catholic in a time of intense feeling 
between religious sects, which had gone to the length of bloody 
wars, in a controversy in which the deprivation of his rights 
by reason of his religion furnished the taunt to this adversary, 
and characterizes a mind as broad and a soul as lofty as the 
spirit of religious toleration in which Maryland alone of all 
the colonies first reared an altar. 

Meanwhile events hurried on in rapid succession. England, 
bent upon the subjugation of the colonies, deprived them of 
one ancient right after another — the duty on tea, the Boston 
port bill, the appointment of the judiciary by the Crown, the 
navigation acts, were all laid with ruthless hand upon the weak 
but determined colonists. The people remonstrated, petitioned, 
prayed. At last when petition availed not, when remonstrance 
seemed vain, when patience had ceased to be a virtue, and 
moderation had failed, the people of the colonies, characterized 
as well by their loyalty and obedience as by their love of law 
and hatred of tyranny, rebelled against the systematic oppres- 
sions of George the Third. 

The immortal Otis inspired Massachusetts by his magnificent 
patriotism and proposed a congress of the colonies. "Join or 
die ' ' echoed from the green hills of New Hampshire to the 
shores of the Savannah. Virginia, under Patrick Henry; South 
Carolina, under Christopher Gadsden; and Maryland, with a 
spontaneous outburst of patriotism led by Charles Carroll 
and Thomas Johnson, approved the suggestion; and each of the 
colonies, catching up the music of union, joined with heavenly 
harmony in the glorious anthem of a new nation. In all this 
struggle the province of Maryland was foremost, most unselfish. 

To prove this must we be reminded that the Frederick 
County court first had the courage, eleven years before the 
Declaration of Independence, to declare the stamp act unconsti- 
tutional; that before a hostile foot had pressed her soil the sons 



88 Acceptance of Statues of 

of Maryland flew to arms at the trumpet call of Massachusetts' 
oppressions; not to defend their own homes, not to protect their 
own families, but to assist a sister colony in maintaining with 
their blood the principles of free government. 

Must we again be told that the old Maryland L,ine was first 
to drive the serried ranks of England from the heights of 
Harlem at the point of the bayonet, and that they bore the 
brunt of almost every fight thenceforth to Valley Forge? Must 
the generous haste with which her sons responded to the call of 
the conquered Carolinas be recounted, and how, from Camden 
to Eutaw Springs, through Guilford Court-House, Hobkirk's 
Hill, and Cowpens, with a determined courage born of patriotic 
conviction, with an impetuous valor inspired by its responsi- 
bility to the future of mankind, the Maryland Line, the tenth 
legion of Green's army, the old guard of the Continental forces, 
dashed with Morgan through the veterans of the daring Tarle- 
ton and with Howard through the Irish Buffs of the gallant 
Webster, and drove them, at the point of the bayonet, in panic 
from the field? 

No hated stamp ever polluted the soil of Maryland. Her 
citizens in daylight, not disguised as Indians, met the ship The 
Good Intent, laden with dutiable articles, at the harbor of 
Annapolis four years before the destruction of the tea in Boston 
Harbor, of which our infant lips are taught to prattle, and com- 
pelled her to put back to England with her unwelcome cargo, 
and within six months after the destruction of the tea at Boston 
Harbor assembled without disguise and compelled the owner of 
the Peggy Steu>art, with a cargo of tea, to set fire to and burn 
her to the water's edge. 

Out of a population of about 250,000 souls she furnished to 
the Continental armies 5,000 militia and 15,000 regulars, 400 
of whom, at the battle of Long Island, withstood six attacks of 
a full brigade of English veterans, covered the retreat of the 
Continental army, saved it from destruction and the Revolu- 
tion from collapse, leaving 260 of their number on the field. 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 89 

Mr. Speaker, in paying tribute to one of Maryland's greatest 
sons I may be pardoned for this partial digression, which so 
naturally thrusts itself upon one's attention in reviewing the 
history of the time written by Northern men, who by some 
inadvertence seem to have overlooked the leading part the 
colony played in the war for human rights. In all of this, of 
all of this, was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, not as a 
soldier, but as an organizer and maturer of provisional and 
permanent government in the province and the nation. 

While I am aware, sir, that military deeds and fame are 
more dazzling and lasting in men's minds than the less dra- 
matic life of a civil officer during war, yet it is apparent that 
as great ability, heroism, and patriotism is needed and may be 
displayed in civil office in such crises as on the tented field. 
The army is the executive arm of a people in such a time, 
while behind the glamour, the martial pomp and glory of all 
successful wars lies the patient, painstaking, plodding states- 
man, reconciling differences, quieting passion, abating jeal- 
ousies, re-forming government out of the broken pieces of a 
former structure, recruiting armies, providing financial system, 
guarding foreign relations, and raising revenue, without all of 
which wars are impossible and their results fruitless of good 
to the people. 

Charles Carroll of Carrollton chose the less showy 
part. He formulated policy, inspired patriotism, collected 
troops and provided for their maintenance, guided public 
sentiment toward liberty, yet retained it short of license, 
embodied into laws rules of action for the people to fit the 
time, meet their aspirations, and safeguard the liberties which 
they won by blood and battle, not only from foreign but 
domestic attack. 

The convention of Maryland assembled July 26, 1775, and 
at once adopted resolutions throwing off the proprietary 
power and assuming a provisional government. This conven- 
tion issued its declaration of independence, known as the 



90 Acceptance of Statues o) 

"Association of the Freemen of Maryland," in which they 
approved the resistance of British aggression by force, pledged 
themselves to sustain this opposition, and gave as their prin- 
cipal reason for such a course not their own wrongs, but the 
oppression of the province of Massachusetts Bay by the British. 
Carroll was a member of this convention and a signer of 
the articles of the, association. 

This association vested all the power of government in a 
provincial convention, and Carroll became a member of this 
convention. The executive power of the new government was 
conferred by this convention upon a committee of safety, con- 
sisting of sixteen members, and Carroll became a member of 
this committee, which had full charge of military and naval 
affairs. The glorious record of Maryland troops, which I have 
just faintly and partially reviewed, therefore was attributable 
in a large measure to his care and executive ability. 

As a member of this committee and of the committee of 
observation of his count}-, as a commissioner with Samuel 
Chase, of Maryland, and Dr. Franklin to Canada to persuade 
her to join the colonies, as a member of Congress, as a member 
of the board of war and the committee on foreign applications, 
as a member of the senate of Maryland and of the United States 
Senate for man}- years, he did industrious, laborious, and 
distinguished service in conducting the war to a successful 
conclusion, securing the independence of t the colonies and 
reorganizing society in the province and nation into well- 
regulated governments. 

To follow him through the various public functions he 
performed would be to write the civic history of the State and 
nation during their struggles, and I shall but revert to some 
of his most distinguished sen-ices to both as a constructive 
statesman. 

To him perhaps more than to any other single man was due 
the honor for securing official action by the colony in favor of 
casting her lot with her sister colonies. The people of the 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 91 

province met in convention on May S, 1776, to select Delegates 
to Congress, which was to decide whether the colonies should 
declare their independence, and agreed in this convention by 
resolution that the interests of the colonies would be best sub- 
served by a reunion with Great Britain. Charles Carroll 
was absent, but at a subsequent session, June 21, he was 
present, and, prevailing upon the delegates to reverse their 
former action, prepared and succeeded in having adopted a 
resolution instructing Maryland's Delegates in Congress "to 
join her sister colonies in declaring the United Colonies free 
and independent States," with the proviso (which showed his 
zealous care of the autonomy of the State), that "the sole 
and exclusive right of regulating the internal government of 
the colony be reserved to the people thereof." 

The recent tendency to elect Senators by the popular vote 
gives peculiar interest to the fact that Charles Carroll of 
Carrollton, as a member of the first constitutional conven- 
tion of Maryland, was the author of the method of electing 
the Senators of that State by electors chosen by the people 
and not by the people directly. This method, which obtained 
in Maryland until 1837, six years after his death, differed 
from that of every other colony that had up to that time 
framed a constitution, made the Maryland senate a famous 
body for many years, and furnished the model for the method 
afterwards prescribed in the Constitution of the United States 
for electing Senators thereof. It had the approval of Madison, 
Taney, and many others, and in the formative period of the 
State's early history secured the best ability of the State for 
the Senate and saved the people much hasty, ill-digested, and 
reckless legislation. 

The necessity of perfect freedom of commerce between the 
States and the absence of any provision for it in the Articles 
of Confederation had perhaps as much to do with the framing 
of the Constitution of the United States, which made this 
country ' ' one and inseparable, now and forever, ' ' as any other 



q 2 Acceptance of Statues' of 

one thing. This necessity created the interstate-commerce 
clause in the Constitution, the shortest and perhaps the most 
benign and comprehensive provision in that great instrument; 
the clause through which alone it is conceded effective legis- 
lation may be enacted to regulate and control the so-called 
trusts. It is not, I apprehend, generally known that this 
necessity was first and most prominently developed in a con- 
troversy between Virginia and Maryland, which became acute 
in 1777. Virginia claimed the right to collect tolls on all 
vessels going through the capes into Chesapeake Bay, which 
right, if conceded, placed the trade of Maryland's principal 
port at the mercy of the State of Virginia. 

Maryland resisted it, and in this year the two houses of 
the legislature appointed commissioners to meet those from 
Virginia to settle the jurisdiction of the rivers and the bay 
dividing the two States. Charles Carroll, Thomas Stone, 
and Brice Thomas Beale Worthington were selected with 
others from the house to prepare instructions for the guid- 
ance of the Maryland commissioners. This dispute convinced 
the States that all navigable interstate waters as well as all 
other means of interstate commerce must be within the 
regulation of a central and superior government, which was 
afterwards accomplished by the interstate-commerce clause. 

Credit may be fairly claimed for Maryland, through Charles 
Carroll of Carrollton, and her other representatives, for 
the promotion and accomplishment of another great national 
benefit, which has redounded richly to the welfare of the 
people— the surrender by the States to the General Govern- 
ment of all their western lands, which afterwards comprised 
the great Northwest Territory. Maryland first brought this ( 
matter to the attention of Congress, and persisted in her 
demand by refusing to sign the Articles of Confederation 
until this concession was made. 

Maryland had been twice shorn of her territory — once by 
Pennsylvania and again by Virginia — and she was unwilling 
that these immense and unknown tracts, extending, as was 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson, 93 

thought in that day, to the Southern Sea, and subjugated by 
the blood of all the colonists, should be the sole estate of the 
several States which claimed them by vague titles. 

This vast expanse, since divided into States and furnishing 
homes for thousands of prosperous American citizens, teeming 
with industry and rich in possessions of all kinds, owes in a 
large measure its present condition to the attitude of Maryland 
and the statesmanship of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, 
and the nation finds a better balance in the territorial area 
of its States. 

Charles Carroll did not remain long in Congress, and, 

indeed, his career there does not seem to have been as brilliant 

in the two terms he served as his service in the State senate 

was. He resigned, after having been elected the third time, 

because, as he said: 

The great deal of time which was idly wasted in frivolous debates dis- 
gusted me so much that I thought I might spend mine better than by 
remaining a silent hearer of such speeches as neither edified, entertained, 
or instructed me. 

Comment upon the wisdom of his reason is, perhaps, unnec- 
essary here. 

Elected to the first Senate of the United States under the 
Articles of Confederation, still holding his seat in the Maryland 
senate, he was an active and influential — nay, a leading figure 
in both. The roll of almost every important committee in the 
Maryland senate during his long service there, and that of 
almost every committee of importance in the Senate of the 
United States, until he resigned therefrom to avoid losing his 
seat in the senate of his State, contains the name of Charles 
Carroll of Carrollton. 

His legislative career, sir, seems to have been distinguished 
rather by real, unattractive, effective work in preparing bills, 
reports, and public papers than in the discussion of questions 
on the floor. Scarcely a communication passed between the 
two houses of the Maryland assembly during his service in 
its senate that he did not prepare and present that communica- 
tion. Fearless independence characterized his attitude toward 



94 Acceptance of Statues of 

and vote upon public questions in both the Maryland legislature 
and in both Houses of Congress. The records of both contain 
many votes on which he stood alone, or nearly so. If he were 
alone it was the loneliness of righteousness — his solitude was 
the solitude of conscientious conviction. Secure in the confi- 
dence of his own rectitude, he did not fear to stand alone, but 
always, whether in reports or debate, gave reasons for his 
positions that inspired the confidence of his associates in his 
integrity and intelligence. 

Devoted to human freedom, although a large owner of slaves, 
he introduced a bill into the United States Senate for the 
gradual abolishment of slavery. Honest in every instinct, he 
resolutely and invariably resisted the issuance by State or 
nation of a depreciated or depreciating paper currency, and 
maintained his position by some of the strongest papers ever 
written upon that subject. 

His fertile mind grasped with equal ease all public subjects, 
from the bestowal of titles on public officers in the United 
States, which he opposed, to intricate questions of revenue, 
finance, and diplomacy. 

His skillful management of Maryland's fight for the national 
capital, which resulted in its location on Maryland soil on the 
banks of the Potomac, stamped him as an astute leader of men 
and conspires with man}' other evidences of his greatness to 
make the erection of a statue to him on this spot most fitting. 

Nor was great capacity for public affairs the only talent of 
this many-sided man. There are few great business enterprises 
of his time and section with the promotion and active manage- 
ment of which his name is not connected. As one of the 
incorporators of and a stockholder in the Baltimore Iron 
Works, as an incorporator of the company then known as 
"The Proprietors of the Susquehanna Canal" (to make that 
river navigable from the border of Maryland to tidewater) , as 
one of the commissioners of the State of Maryland to confer 
with those of Virginia for the opening and extension of 
navigation on the Potomac, which resulted in the renewal 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 95 

of the Potomac Company, the parent of the Chesapeake and 
Ohio Canal, and, finally, as the first of the American directors 
of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, he proved that his capa- 
bilities were not confined to abstract discussion of theories 
of government, but extended to the successful advancement 
of the material interests of the State. 

Tall, straight, slender, graceful, and imposing in figure and 
mien, polished and courtly in manner and address, refined and 
cultivated in mind and spirit, pure of purpose and of lofty 
ideals and aspirations, he was the paragon of the gentleman, 
the patriot, and the statesman of his time. 

Leading by ability, not pretense; persuading by reason, not 
sophistry; commanding by affection, not fear, he was a distinct 
and effective factor in all the great work of his generation 
until, with honors thick upon him and the consciousness of 
work well done, he retired from public life with the love of 
those who knew him best, the lofty esteem of those with whom 
he served his country, and the confidence, respect, and grati- 
tude of all his fellow-citizens, and died lamented by every man 
who cherished honor and loved virtue. 

In the heart of the older Maryland where he located the 
capital of the United States, at the left hand of the great 
Samuel Adams, who fired the citizenship of Massachusetts, 
as he that of Maryland, into open resistance to oppression, 
looking toward Allen and Garfield, of Ohio, formed from the 
trackless Northwest, which he saved to the nation for the 
construction of free States, and in company with Benton and 
Blair, of Missouri, who, in a later crisis led their State to 
adhere to the Union, as he, in the first great crisis, led his 
to adhere to her sister colonies to throw off the tyranny of 
England, he, and they, and all their associates will stand 
as silent and continual monuments to the immortal truth 
they labored and fought to establish, that the collective 
will of individual freemen is the truth and only source of the 
power and authority of all the governments of man. [Loud 
applause.] 



96 Acceptance of Statues of 



Address of Mr. Dalzell., of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Speaker: Nearly forty years ago the President of the 
United States was authorized by law to extend an invitation to 
each State of the Union to contribute to the Chamber of the 
old House of Representatives, now known as Statuary Hall, 
the figures in imperishable marble or bronze of not exceeding 
two of her deceased citizens, illustrious for their historic renown 
or for distinguished civil or military service such as might be 
deemed worthy of national commemoration. 

It is matter of historic interest that the author of the propo- 
sition was that distinguished sou of Vermont to whom the 
people of this country in largest part owe their splendid Con- 
gressional Ljbrary, and who for a period of more than forty 
years in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, 
rendered to his country illustrious public service — the late 
Senator Justin Morrill. 

What he said in speaking to the passage of the bill in the 
House on April 19, 1864, is worthy of reproduction here at 
this time. With reference to the Hall of the old House, he 
said : 

Congress is the guardian of this fine old Hall, surpassing in beauty all 
the rooms of this vast pile, and should protect it from desecration. Its 
noble columns from a quarry exhausted and incapable of reproduction — 

" Nature formed but one, 
And broke the die in molding." 

Its democratic simplicity and grandeur of style and its wealth of asso- 
ciation, with many earliest and eloquent chapters in the history of our 
country, deserve perpetuity at the hands of an American Congress. It 
was here that many of our most distinguished men, whose fame "the 
world will not willingly let die," began or ended their career. 

It appears to me eminently proper, therefore, that this House should 
take the initiative in setting apart with reverent affection the Hall, so 
charged with precious memories, to some purpose of usefulness and dig- 
nity. To what end more useful or grand, and at the same time simple 
and inexpensive, can we devote it than to ordain that it shall be set apart 
for the reception of such statuary as each State shall elect to be deserving 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 97 

of this lasting commemoration? Will not all the States with generous 
emulation proudly respond, and thus furnish a new evidence that the Union 
will clasp and hold forever all its jewels — the glories of the past, civil, 
military, and judicial — in one hallowed spot where those who will be here 
to aid in carrying on the Government may daily receive fresh inspiration 
and new incentives. 

"To scorn delights and live laborious days?" and where pilgrims from 
all parts of the Union, as well as from foreign lands, may come and behold 
a gallery filled with such American manhood as succeeding generations 
will delight to honor, and see also the actual form and mold of those who 
have inerasably fixed their names on the pages of history. 

Whether the conception was original with Mr. Morrill or 
not, I do not know. It may be that it had been his fortune 
to visit St. Stephen's Hall in the new palace of Westminster 
and to behold on either hand ' ' the statues of Parliamentary 
statesmen who rose to eminence \>y the eloquence and abilities 
they displayed in the House of Commons;" of Hampden, the 
apostle of liberty, in an age of royal arrogance; of Falkland, 
Clarendon, Selden, Somers, and Mansfield, immortal in the 
annals of English law; of Sir Robert Walpole, Fox, Burke, and 
Grattan, unsurpassed in the logical and thrilling eloquence of 
English speech; of the Earl of Chatham, America's friend in 
her time of need, and of his brilliant son, incomparable states- 
man even in his early manhood, and, equally with his father, 
dear to us in his devotion to our cause, William Pitt. 

It may be that, thrilled with the etnotions of his sight, he 
contemplated an array of American statesmen, orators, and 
public men who in our American capital should challenge 
comparison with this array of the mother country in her 
historic hall. However that may be, it is nevertheless true 
that while "the actual form and mold of Justin Morrill, who 
has inerasably fixed his name on the pages of our history, does 
not appear in our Hall of Statues, it is also true that column 
and arch and the artistic whole bear testimony to his memory 
and are suggestive of his patriotic foresight. 

Maryland to-day asserts her right to a place in the gallery 
of our heroes and presents to the nation the statues of two of 
her citizens illustrious for their historic renown, distinguished 
S. Doc. 1-, 7 



98 Acceptance of Statues of 

for civic service, and worthy of national commemoration, and 
prays judgment upon her choice. 

In this ceremony Pennsylvania is no intruder. She claims a 
right to a part in the imposing exercises. William Penn and 
George Calvert (L,ord Baltimore) were twin pioneers in an 
adventure upon a new continent. Quaker and Roman Catholic, 
they each sought a virgin soil on which to plant and nourish 
the principles of civil and religious liberty. Knight-errants 
were they in the search for that of which England in her 
decadence under the rule of the Stuarts knew nothing. But 
more than that, Pennsylvania and Maryland have an intimate 
place in history, because of the fact that the royal grants to 
Penn and Calvert gave rise to a question of title that has a 
marked place in our national history. Parts of the same 
territory were included in each royal concession. Hence arose 
a controversy which was ultimately determined by the defini- 
tion of Mason and Dixon's line — a line which for years was 
looked upon not only as dividing territory, but as the boundary 
between human liberty and the system of human slavery. 
Such line of demarcation, thank God, is now a thing of the 
forgotten and buried past. Pennsylvania and Maryland are 
now, as they were in the beginning, twin champions of the 
institutions which mean liberty to all men, and but recently 
the valor of their sons fighting in a common cause testifies 
their common interest in humanity, even to the shedding of 
blood on foreign soils — theirs a common flag and a common 
creed of freedom. 

Maryland asks the nation to accept as her contribution to 
its gallery of heroes John Hanson and Charles Carroll 
of Carrollton. John Hanson was a distinguished patriot of 
the times that tried men's souls, and fills a large place in the 
Maryland history of those times. Others will speak at length 
of his virtues and his title to our regard. I prefer to speak of 
that other distinguished man whose statue in bronze we face 
to-day in the company of the immortals whom the various 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 99 

States of this^ Union have set up with pride in our Capitol 

Charles Carroll of Carrollton. As much as any man of 
his generation anywhere, and more than any other man of his 
generation in Maryland— and there were giants in those 
days— he stands for that generation's grand conception and 
heroic acts. 

Born in 1737, he long outlived the contemporaries of his 
birth. Dying in 1832, at the age of 95 years, he is conspicu- 
ously known as the last survivor of the signers of the Declara- 
tion Of Independence. But that is by no means his only title 
to an honorable fame. His life's history is unique. Thirty 
years he was a student, preparatory to a life of patriotic action 
equally long, and that was followed by another like period of 
rest and scholarly recreation in the practice of the virtues of 
citizenship which furnished to his contemporaries and to pos- 
terity an illustrious example for their guide and instruction. 
This triple career has no parallel in American history or, so 
far as I know, in any other. His first thirty years were spent 
partly in a home school, but mainly abroad in institutions of 
learning on the Continent, in a study of languages, of the arts, 
of philosophy, of all that conspires to make the accomplished 
and scholarly gentleman. He was a student of the civil law 
in France and of the common law in England. 

Endowed by inheritance with great wealth, he might have 
surrendered himself to the enjoyment of ease and the com- 
forts of life, without regard to the great questions that the 
period in which he lived presented. His life covered the period 
preceding the Revolution, the Revolutionary period, and that 
which succeeded it. In each and all of these he was a 
prominent and commanding figure. He was during his whole 
life conspicuously Maryland's champion of the cause of civil 
and religious liberty. 

His sojourn and education abroad had no influence upon 
his Americanism. He returned to his home in Maryland an 
ardent patriot, imbued with the spirit of independence and 



ioo Acceptance of Statues of 

prepared to give his life, his energies, and his x talents to its 
service. He returned at a time when the storm clouds were 
already gathering that presaged the Revolution, and he 
enrolled himself actively" upon the side of the colonies and 
against the mother country. His scholarly and energetic pen 
was devoted to the task of creating and encouraging a patriotic 
and aggressive public opinion. 

At one time a question arose in the house of delegates 
relative to the fees of civil officers of the colonial government. 
This the governor undertook to settle by a proclamation, and 
a question as to his right to do so became the subject of 
discussion in the public press. In a series of letters notable 
for their classic style, their convincing logic, and the spirit of 
freedom that pervaded them, under the nom de plume of First 
Citizen, Mr. Carroll assailed the governor's right. "In a 
land of freedom," said he, "this arbitrary exertion of the 
prerogative will not, must not, be endured." Although 
opposed by Mr. Daniel Dulaney, the provincial secretary, a 
man of great power as a writer and distinguished reputation 
as a lawyer, Mr. Carroll succeeded in securing the indorse- 
ment of public opinion, and the governor's proclamation was 
burnt by the common hangman. He early foresaw that the 
continued encroachment of England upon the rights of the 
colonies must inevitably result in war. 

When Mr. Graves, a member of Parliament, asserted that 
6,000 soldiers would easily march from one end of the colonies 
to the other, he replied: 

So they may, but they will be masters of the spot only on which they 
encamp. They will find naught but enemies before and around them. 
If we are beaten in the plains we will retreat to our mountains and defy 
them. Our resources will increase with our difficulties. Necessity will 
force lis to exertion, until, tired of combating in vain against a spirit 
which victory after victory can not subdue, your armies will evacuate 
our soil, and your country retire a great loser by the contest. 

In June, 1774, the delegates of Maryland as a protest against 
British aggression declared the importation of tea to be unlaw- 
ful. A certain Mr. Stewart, a friend of Mr. Carroll's, was a 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 101 

consignee of a cargo of the forbidden merchandise in his brig 
Peggy Stewart. 

Indignant people rose up to prevent the unloading. Mr. 
Carroll was appealed to by the owner for protection. Setting 
aside, however, his personal esteem for his friend, he declared 
the importation to be in defiance of the law, and said, "My 
advice is that he (the owner) set fire to the vessel and burn 
her, together with the tea that she contains, to the water's 
edge," and this was done. In the Revolutionary period, 
Charles Carroll of Carrollton filled many conspicuous 
and important as well as laborious offices in which his services 
proved of great advantage to the cause of the struggling colon- 
ists. He was a member of the first committee of observation 
in Maryland and a delegate in the provincial convention. 

That convention at one time instructed the Maryland Repre- 
sentatives in the General Congress ' ' To disavow in the most 
solemn manner all design in the colonies of independence." 

He secured a repeal of these instructions and a substitu- 
tion in their stead of a direction to the Representatives ' ' To 
concur with the other United Colonies, or a majority of them, 
in declaring the United Colonies free and independent States." 

He was one of the three commissioners — Samuel Chase and 
Dr. Franklin being the others — appointed to effect if possible a 
coalition between Canada and the colonies against the mother 
country. 

Had the attempt, which failed, been successful and had 
Canada joined forces in the cause of independence, how 
different might now have been the complexion of the American 
Union! He was a member of the Congress that gave to the 
world the Declaration of Independence and one of the signers 
of that great instrument. He was a member of the board of 
war and continued while on that board and in Congress to be 
a member also of the Maryland convention. He was one of 
the committee appointed to draft the constitution of his State. 
After the adoption of the constitution, he w r as twice United 
States Senator from the State of Maryland. He was one of 



102 Acceptance of Statues of 

the commissioners for settling the boundary line between 
Maryland and Virginia. 

I do not regard this as a proper occasion on which to 
attempt a lengthy or detailed review of the life of Charles 
Carroll of Carrollton. What I have said is sufficient to 
indicate that in the choice of his statue for Statuary Hall, 
Mandand has complied with the strict letter of the law and 
contributed one of her citizens illustrious for historic renown 
and distinguished for civil service worthy of national com- 
memoration. 

Charles Carroll was an ardent Federalist, and with the 
downfall of that party in 1801 laid down the burdens of 
public and retired to private life. He was then 64 years of 
age. There yet remained to him, as the sequel showed, thirty- 
two years more of life, all of which were spent in the enjoy- 
ment of a dignified leisure, in scholarly pursuits, and in the 
practice of his religion, to which he was ardently devoted. 
He was an enthusiastic Roman Catholic, faithful to the teach- 
ings of his church and observant of its customs and obli- 
gations. 

A scholar, a statesman, a man of affairs, a Christian gentle- 
man, he was idolized by his fellow-citizens, not only for what 
he had done, but for what he was in himself and by way of 
example to others. 

Since I came into this Hall this afternoon I find that so 

honored and conspicuous a figure was Charles Carroll in 

his old age that he received express recognition from Congress. 

I find the following letter, written to him by Andrew Stevenson, 

the Speaker of the House: 

Washington, May 22, 1828. 
Sir: I have the honor to communicate to you, by direction of the House 
of Representatives, the inclosed joint resolution of both Houses of Con- 
gress, extending to you, as the only surviving signer of the Declaration of 
Independence, the privilege of franking. You will be pleased, sir, to 
receive it as a token of the distinguished respect and veneration which 
Congress entertains toward an early and devoted friend to liberty, and 
one who stood preeminently forward in the purest and noblest band of 
patriots that this world has ever seen. 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 103 

I can not resist the gratification which this opportunity affords of pub- 
licly testifying the strong sentiments of esteem and veneration which, 
individually, I entertain for your character and services, and expressing 
an earnest hope that the evening of your long life may be as peaceful and 
happy as it has been active and useful. 

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient and faithful servant, 

Andrew Stevenson, 
Speaker of the House of Representatives of the I 'nited States. 

It was his happy lot to see the Government that he had 
helped to found grow in strength and influence; to see his 
country expand in territory and wealth, and to be inspired 
with the faith that the future held in store for it only con- 
tinued and progressive advances. 

Charles Carroll's title to enduring fame rests upon the 
fact that he was a lover of and a successful worker in the 
cause of human liberty. 

A great American orator once said, in speaking about 

statues: 

The honors we grant mark how high we stand, and they educate the 
future. The men we honor and the maxims we lay down in measuring 
our favorites show the level and morals of the time. 

Mr. Speaker, we may safely abide admeasurement by this 
standard when we introduce into our American Pantheon 
Charles Carroll of Carrollton. 

Could some miracle for the time being breathe the breath 
of life into the figures that adorn our Statuary Hall, Carroll 
would need no introduction to that company, nor would that 
company need introduction to him. The one touch of nature 
that makes the whole world kin would be found in the com- 
mon love of liberty, in the common devotion to its principles, 
and in the common life service in its cause. It would be 
a goodly company, in which there could be no rivalry as 
between its members, except rivalry as to extreme devotion 
to country and to fellow-man ; a company that includes 
soldiers and statesmen, diplomats, and men who have been 
potent factors in the advancement of civilization; such a 
soldier as the chivalric and knightly Kearny; such a diplomat 



104 Acceptance of Statues of 

as Livingston, who gave to us our empire west of the 
Mississippi; such an agent of civilization as Robert Fulton, 
creator of commerce; such a statesman as Webster, expounder 
of the Constitution; and, peerless in the world's history among 
the champions of liberty, the immortal Washington. [Loud 
applause.] 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 105 



Address of Mr. Schirm, of Maryland. 

Mr. Speaker : To commemorate her great men and to per- 
petuate the glory of their deeds \>y public ceremonies and in 
lasting works of art are the fitting acts of a great nation. 
The} 7 inspire veneration for the past and infuse hope for the 
future. L,ove of country is thereby stimulated in the bosoms 
of both young and old, and the spirit of sacrifice wins the 
devotion of the heart for future crises. A country without 
monuments is a living death — she throws no beam of light 
upon the untrodden path of the future. To her humanity 
looks in vain for a guiding star, but a country that molds in 
bronze and stone her tributes to greatness ever lives, and tells 
the story of her achievements to the recurring centuries with 
charming eloquence. Sensible of these facts, the law of our 
land has provided that each State might send the effigies of 
two of her chosen sons to be placed permanently in the 
National Statuary Hall. 

It pleases the fancy to reflect that in that Hall the House of 
Representatives held its meetings until the completion of this 
magnificent Chamber, and the imagination, Pygmalion-like, 
conjures into living form the statues of those patriots who, by 
their oratory in the forum of the House or by their heroism 
upon the fields of battle, won laurels for themselves and shed 
luster upon the pages of American history. 

The State of Maryland has now availed itself of its privilege 
and erected among those silent witnesses of great events and 
the doers of great deeds the effigies of two of her illustrious 
sons, Charles Carroll of Carrollton and John Hanson. 

My worthy and eloquent colleague has already portrayed 
the character and achievements of Charles Carroll of 
Carrollton, and the pleasant duty has been assigned me of 
performing a similar office in honor of John Hanson. 

The little colony of Maryland played an important part in 



106 Acceptance of Statues of 

the gigantic drama which closed with the independence of the 
United States; and it is from this period that Maryland has 
made both of her selections. So man}- able and brilliant men 
have graced the history of our State that much embarrassment 
was encountered in choosing but two upon whom to confer this 
distinction, for fear that thereby injustice might seem to have 
been intentionally done to others. Had we been privileged 
we could easily have filled all available space with effigies of 
renowed Marylanders and yet have felt dissatisfied that 
others equally worthy could not be added. 

Among jurists, the name of Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice 
of the Supreme Bench of the United States, suggests itself; 
among statesmen, Samuel Chase; among orators, William 
Piukney and Henr)^ Winter Davis; among soldiers, Col. John 
Eager Howard, who with the Maryland Line saved the day at 
Cowpens; Gen. Otho H. Williams, whose genius was displayed 
on many fields, and Lieut. Col. Tench Tilghman, who was 
an aid on the staff of General Washington; as a promoter of 
religious freedom, Csecilius Calvert; as a writer of national 
anthems, Francis Scott Key, who gave to our country the Star 
Spangled Banner, when he saw by the dawn's early light that 
our flag was still floating over the ramparts of Fort McHeury. 
f I To John Hanson, however, belongs the distinction of hav- 
ing held the highest Federal office ever conferred upon a Mary- 
lander, that of President of the. United States in Congress 
assembled, and of having done more than any other one man 
in the colony to destroy" the supremacy of Great Britain. 
John Hanson was born at Mulberry Grove, Charles County, 
Md., on April 3, 1721. The Hanson family was a large one, 
and many of them found their way into the public service. 
His grandfather, Colonel Hanson, fell at L,iitzen for the cause 
of religious liberty; his oldest brother, Judge Walter Hanson, 
was commissary for Charles County; his brother Samuel was a 
patriot, and presented to General Washington ^800 sterling to 
provide shoes for his barefoot soldiers; William,, his youngest 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 10 y 

brother, was examiner-general of Maryland; his son, Alex- 
ander Contee, was a patriot and intimate with Washington. 
He was one of the first judges of the general court and chan- 
cellor of the State; he was an elector for Washington, and 
compiled the laws of Maryland; his son, Samuel, was a sur- 
geon in the Life Guards of Washington, and his son, Peter 
Contee, of the Maryland Line, was wounded at Fort Wash- 
ington. ■/ 

The first mention of John Hanson in public life is as a 
delegate from Charles County to the lower house of assembly, 
in which he served nine terms. The disputes which arose 
between the two houses of assembly upon the burning ques- 
tions of the day brought to the lower house, composed of the 
representatives of the people in the province, .the ablest men in 
Maryland. He carried to that body a matured mind, which 
was there trained for the higher and more important responsi- 
bilities that awaited him in a broader field. At the close of 
the French and Indian war the tide of immigration turned to 
the fertile regions of Frederick County, and thither, in 1773, 
John Hanson followed the long train of sturdy home builders. 
In his new environment his personal magnetism was soon felt; 
his sound judgment and honesty of character won for him the 
respect and confidence of the people. His advice was eagerly 
sought in those times of growing dissatisfaction, and, through 
his efforts, the citizens of Frederick County became devoted to 
the principles of the Revolution and firm in their resistance 
to the oppressions of the mother country. 

His influence constantly increased and he was the leading 
spirit among a band of determined patriots during the transi- 
tion of Maryland from a dependent, proprietary province into 
a sovereign State. During this period of transition there 
gradually grew up side by side with the proprietary govern- 
ment another government— a government of the people. The 
latter was an outgrowth of the restless desire for freedom, and 
its formidable character was not suspected until it became too 



10S Acceptance of Statues of 

powerful to be checked. This new government consisted of a 
general convention of the province and its council of safety, 
while in the counties there were mass meetings and committees 
of observation, with an embryo department of state called a 
committee of correspondence. Hanson was a member of the 
convention and served as chairman of both the committee of 
observation and the committee of correspondence in Frederick 
County. To these honors was added that of treasurer of the 
county, and to him were intrusted all the funds to pay the 
soldiers and the Delegates to Congress. 

John Hanson was a silent, but no less effective, power. 
His activity was of that character as to require secrecy to 
make his plans effective. When, however, the crisis had been 
reached, when bold and fearless words were needed to arouse 
the resolution and strengthen the purpose of his compatriots, 
he arose in the convention in July, 1775, and with the unflinch- 
ing determination of Patrick Henry declared that they would 
"repel force by force," and pledged himself to support the 
' ' present opposition. ' ' These were timely words. Enthusiasm 
was rekindled; other colonies heard them and rejoiced. From 
that day the colonists in Maryland were bound in closer union. 
Upon John Hanson primarily devolved the task of organiz- 
ing and equipping the army. Money was scarce, arms and 
ammunition were scarcer, but his resourceful mind knew no 
obstacles. 

Under his direction two companies of riflemen were sent to 
join the army at Boston, and these were the first troops that 
came from the South to Washington's assistance. Forty com- 
panies of minutemen were organized, and the whole of Mary- 
land was put upon the defensive. Arms were manufactured, 
powder mills erected, and money provided through voluntary 
contributions. So thorough was his work that when 13,800 
militia were required to reenforce the army, Maryland furnished 
much more than her full quota. That he had the confidence 
of the Government is evidenced from the fact that President 



Charles Carroll and John Hanson, 109 

Hancock made him one of a committee of two to transmit 
$300,000 to General Washington for the maintenance of the 
army in Canada, and by the further fact that he was one of 
the committee of four deputized to reorganize the Maryland 
troops, for which purpose Congress furnished the committee 
with blank commissions to be issued, under the advice of 
General Washington, to officers who reenlisted after the term 
of their enlistment had expired. 

John Hanson rendered one service to his country that can 
not be too greatly extolled. Lord Dunmore, the proprietary 
governor of Virginia, conceived the plan of arming the Indians 
on the frontier and to make a simultaneous attack upon the 
colonies from the back country and from the coast. It was 
planned first to fall upon Fort Pitt, in Pennsylvania, and 
thence to work their way eastward to Alexandria, Va., in 
which vicinity there was a fleet of 90 British ships prepared to 
continue the onslaught along the waterways. The designs of 
Lord Dunmore were soon detected by Hanson and by his vigi- 
lance frustrated. Dr. John Connolly, one of the chief con- 
spirators, who had been carrying dispatches from General Gage 
to Lord Dunmore, and who had been operating with the 
Cherokee, Swanee, Mingo, and Delaware tribes, with several of 
his comrades, fell into the hands of the minutemen of Mary- 
land, near Hagerstown, while they were on their way to Detroit. 
The arrest of these allies of the King and Parliament, of Gen- 
eral Gage and Lord Dunmore, was followed by their imprison- 
ment, and the conspiracy died. 

About four years later, in 1779, in another sphere of action, 
John Hanson again proved himself the man of the hour. 
Maryland had persistently refused to agree to the Articles of 
Confederation until some provision had been made for settling 
the question of the Western domain. That Maryland was 
right in her contention subsequent events have established; but 
a crisis had been reached upon which may have devolved the 
very existence of the Union. John Hanson, believing that 



1 10 Acceptance of Statues of 

the failure to effect a union would probably mean the loss of 
everything that had been achieved and that through union 
alone the perplexing questions could be solved, set to work to 
have the bar to a complete union removed. His attitude at 
this time was not unlike that of President Lincoln at a later 
period of our national history. Hanson's efforts were re- 
warded by the passage of an act to empower the Delegates 
of this vState in Congress to subscribe and ratify the Articles 
of Confederation, and accordingly, on the ist day of March, 
1 78 1, John Hanson and Daniel Carroll, as Delegates of the 
State of Maryland, put' their signatures to the document 
which was the beginning of the indissoluble Union of the 
United States. This having been accomplished, he threw his 
entire force into the debate on the Western land question. 
That question was settled according to the judgment of 
Maryland, and out of that vast territory which became the 
common property of all the States were carved the newer 
States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and a part of 
Wisconsin. 

John Hanson was three times elected to the Continental 
Congress, and after his third election was elevated to the posi- 
tion of President of that body. During his first and second 
terms in Congress he was shown the distinction of being elected 
also to the lower house of the State, After twenty-five years 
of public service, rich with the honors that become the man 
with a clear mind and an incorruptible heart, he retired to pri- 
vate life, and spent his last days at Oxon Hill, Prince George 
County, Md., where he died November 22, 1783. 

John Hanson was one of those modest, unassuming great 
men who seek no glory for themselves, but find their highest 
reward in the good that accrues from their efforts to the great 
body of the people. He was essentially a thinker, a contriver, 
an unraveler of knotty points, a man to whom the people 
looked when other leaders said, "What shall we do now?" In 
those days, when there was great diversity of opinion among 



Charles Carroll and Joint Hanson. in 

men of equal ability and patriotism, John Hanson proved him- 
self a master in bringing to the front the central idea and 
enlisting the support of all men who in their adherence to the 
chief thought lost sight of minor differences. He was of a 
reflective temperament, weighing well each proposition, and 
standing firm hy his decisions. Too little tribute has hereto- 
fore been paid to those quiet, thoughtful men who have fur- 
nished the basic ideas upon which governments have been 
founded and for which armies have contended. Behind the 
man behind the gun is the idea, the principle, the conviction, 
which justifies his use of arms, and without which an army 
becomes an irresponsible mob. It has been said that it is sweet 
and beautiful to die for one's country, but it is no less .sublime 
to give to one's country sound doctrine and imperishable 
tenets. The statue of John Hanson, representing him in a 
reflective attitude, I now formally present to our country, 
whose Government he so grandly helped to establish. [Loud 
applause.] 

Mr. Speaker, I move the adoption of the resolution offered 
by my colleague. 

The Speaker pro tempore (Mr, Grosvenor). The question 
is on agreeing to the resolution offered by the gentleman from 
Maryland [Mr. Pearre]. 

The resolution was agreed to. 



r^Q- ? g 



